"When someone shows you who they are...

...believe them the first time." Maya Angelou 

My husband's birthday was yesterday. As I sat in stillness after my meditation, after we'd shared a cup of coffee together and he'd left for the office, as I was thinking about the ingredients I would have to shop for to prepare his birthday meal that evening, I remembered a few of his birthdays before I quit drinking. I remembered the grand gestures I'd made by buying his favorite bourbon or a couple of bottles of expensive French wine, only he'd never asked for alcohol. In fact, I distinctly remember him straining to feign gratitude because he knew that I was really buying those things for me. 

I was showing him exactly who I was and in turn, he was showing me.

Creation is the antidote to most states of my discomfort. It serves both being and doing. Engaging in a creative act requires every inch of you. Try writing while distracted, it's all but impossible. And even if you're stitching in front of Netflix, you're really only doing one or the other. Grounded in reality is the very definition of sobriety and immersed in creation, I'm being exactly who I am and by doing, I'm showing. Through creativity, I can put all of my desires for hopefulness, my pining for visibility, my anticipation of expectations that are ultimately not met. Creation is the medicine.

I'm making the personal universal through this letter I'm writing to you, through the stitching I will do later today, through the birthday meal I lovingly prepared for my husband last night. I get to show you exactly who I am: A woman who changed her story by doing the thing she didn't think she could do.

The good news is that every time you change, you get another opportunity to show the truth of who you are. You get unlimited first times. If you need a witness to your transition, I'm available. Check out Change Your Story. My hope for you is that the reflection you see in the mirror is the one everyone sees, the truth.