On the couch post DRAGALUTION

Getting to August 8 was one of the most difficult journeys of my life. I was physically unable to walk weeks leading to the show and was set free from the pain long enough to take to the streets and the stage only to be cast back upon the golden green cushions on my couch. It has been here, stranded in my home, that I have come to face myself for the first time in my life. Fully and without recoil. I've had a huge revelation. It is a multi-fold revelation. I've glimpsed a few aspects of it all. I will start with this reoccurring flashback to my 11th year which almost seamlessly works into another aspect of my unfolding.

The flashback:

I know I've shared this before, so I'll fast forward through it. A summer birthday party 1980. All of the kids ( a combo of 4 or 5 Catholic families so usually enough for 2 teams) are playing football on the side yard. Well, all but me.... I'm too fat. I'm too slow. I always drop the ball. I run like a girl. There were always a multitude of reasons why I didn't get to play. I'm sitting on the brick wall by the kitchen eating an ice cream come cupcake when one of the moms asked why I wasn't playing. I told he. Next thing: the kids are being told that if they don't play with me, they will be punished...OR ELSE! 

From that day on, I knew that all the kids were just being nice to me.. OR ELSE. Here is where I discovered the root of the chip on my shoulder my mother always refered to. I just never saw it until yesterday.

I realized that was when I started pushing more fiercely than ever before. I went way over the too just to see how far they would go to avoid the OR ELSE. In many ways, it is what pushed me to be a leader. Being in a small town, I figured all the kids were given the OR ELSE memo. I worked hard to be on top only because it kept me from facing the reality that I was just 'chub rub Davis' who no one wanted on their team.

I do not begrudge the path. I am grateful for how I had to climb above it all. The thing I realize it has done is to condition me to always push, generally, the line. By doing that push, no matter how much I grew from it, I have isolated myself in a way that I can love without letting it sink into me.

I've been melting these past few years. I understand aspects of my resistance to intimacy in friendships and in sexual ways too. I see that I've pushed myself to be so self-propelling that I have made it nearly impossible to have space within my soul in order to never be picked again. This drive became my own OR ELSE.

Now, don't think that I have not had close loving relationships because I have so many of them. I've just never allowed them to penetrate into my soul for fear of being vulnerable and to be seen completely.

The thing is, it is I who has not seen. I've spent the last 34 years never looking at myself, only aspects of the whole. You, my friends, have taught me to do that through my journey as Daylight. Crazy. Right?!

This leads me to my next revelation:

Because of the

OR ELSE, I went places in my life I never would have gone. I had to face my fears so that no one would find my weakness. I have challenged, you, my friends from my boundary pushing. Y'all have seen me through so many phases of self expression and explosion. You have seen me through serious drinking and abusive relationships; MFA and NYC; platform shoes, mannequins, body glitter, blonde hair, red  hair, black hair to no hair. And most recently, as a big-ol-queen in a small fishing town and you support me, and love me and that has caused the shift for me. YOU HAVE BROUGHT ME TO MYSELF.

This rebel has come home and realized that it is time to allow you in. I will not push any longer. I will open and allow you within. I am ready to share myself with you. I can not thank you enough for sticking with me and pushing me to see myself. I feel as if the shell of my persona has finally split and has started to allow the essence of my being to take root and grow within the glowing light of your unrelenting affection. With an open heart I breathe my light fully for you.

Forever yours,

Daylight