Identify does not come to us without journey, because to learn who we are means we face difficult truths in our own lives and imagine what life might look like as those work themselves out inside of us…whiteness takes so much from us, journeying…means that finding our way back may come in the most unexpected ways.

But the return is the key. How you heard the story of the prodigal son?…In the end it isn’t that he ran away or that we wasted money and years of his life. The think we notice is the jour home, the return, that open-armed father with tears streaming down his face, that son being beckoned back again. That is the sacred power of coming home, even it it’s a home you don’t recognize but long to be a apart of. – pages 14-15 of Native by Kaitlin B Curtice

My journey of finding my way back to myself is giving myself permission to be myself. Whiteness gave me  mixed messages growing up. I can be anything I want as long as it is already on this preapproved list. I can be smart as long as my curiosity doesn’t push me to ask too many questions.  I can and should be pretty and care about my appearance but not too much because the flesh is sinful and sexuality and desire must be tempered. I can and should help people but not in ways that would shift power structures.

These messages have left me feeling broken and small. I am afraid to be me. I am afraid of my fullness. I am afraid of be too much. Somewhere along the way, I and the world around me decided how much space I could take up. I didn’t fit it then. It seemed so vast to my small self. I raced to grow, like a new seed in a pot. I thought I could be anything. I felt so free. After years of growing, my roots began to hit the edges of the pot and I recoiled. I didn’t know there were limits. I shrank back. But I am not made to be small. So I push my roots out again, seeking truth and space to be my full self. My roots have reached out through the drainage hole. My roots have found life outside of this cultivated pot. I love this pot that nurtured me and gave me a safe and rich space to grow. I am grateful for the shelter it gave me while I was young and tender. And yet, something good can cause death when it stunts and limits growth. So, here I am, in my journey, trying to grow strong enough to push through the cracks in my pot and return home. Home to the belief that I am free to be me and there aren’t limits on how big I can be or what shape I must take.