Field Note: Cultivation on a Sandbar

Maybe this Field Note is too angry.

Maybe it is too honest.

Maybe it says things polite communities prefer remain unsaid.

So be it.

Healing is not always graceful.

Sometimes it looks like forgiveness.

Sometimes it looks like grief.

Sometimes it looks like planting flowers.

Sometimes it looks like walking away.

And sometimes it sounds like a person finally deciding they are no longer sorry for surviving.

There are things in my life that broke my heart.

People I loved who could not love me well.

Friendships that didn't survive the truth.

Jobs that harmed me.

Communities that watched.

Losses that arrived too early.

Stories that were written about me without my permission.

I spent years trying to survive it.

Years trying to understand it.

I never expected apologies.

Truthfully, I learned something else entirely.

I was always the one saying sorry.

Sorry.

Sorry.

Sorry.

Over and over again.

Trying to hang on a little longer.

Trying to smooth things over.

Trying to keep relationships alive.

Trying to absorb impacts that were never mine alone to carry.

Sorry.

At some point I realized I could spend the rest of my life staring at the damage.

Or I could begin cultivating around it.

Not because the damage wasn't real.

Because it was.

The garden is real too.

The milk glass.

The writing.

The walks.

The cards.

The collections.

The small rituals that help hold a life together.

These things are not distractions.

They are evidence.

Evidence that something survived.

Evidence that joy can grow in difficult soil.

Evidence that a person can lose entire chapters and still keep writing.

I am not pretending it wasn't that bad.

It was.

I am not pretending I didn't fall apart.

I did.

I am not pretending I wasn't devastated.

I was.

Some made sure of that.

My parents were gone before I was twenty-five.

My mother died from alcoholism.

I spent years carrying grief I didn't know what to do with.

School was often a place of fear rather than learning.

I was bullied.

Hit.

Choked.

Mocked.

Asked if I was stupid.

Terrified to use the bathroom.

I struggled with reading, numbers, words, and things no one could ever fully explain to me.

I found ways through it.

Not because it was easy.

Because there was no other choice.

College took me three tries.

Three.

Even now, walking onto a campus can make my stomach hurt.

People see degrees and transcripts.

They don't see the panic.

The exhaustion.

The nights spent memorizing because understanding wasn't coming easily enough.

The tests I failed despite trying my hardest.

The effort hidden beneath outcomes.

Later came other battles.

Relationships that hurt.

Friendships that ended.

Workplaces that damaged me.

Harassment.

Isolation.

The realization that some people will watch suffering from a comfortable distance and call it neutrality.

I learned something difficult.

Being civilized does not guarantee protection.

Being kind does not guarantee kindness in return.

Being loyal does not guarantee loyalty.

That lesson cost me more than I wanted to pay.

For a long time I thought resilience meant enduring.

Holding on.

Trying harder.

Apologizing more.

Explaining better.

Being more understanding.

Now I think resilience sometimes means something else.

Leaving.

Walking away.

Refusing to spend another decade proving your humanity to people committed to misunderstanding it.

Making a clean break.

Not because you are running.

Because you deserve a fresh start.

And the truth is, guilty people rarely like fresh starts.

They prefer old stories.

Old versions of you.

Old roles.

Old wounds.

They want you carrying the weight because it helps them avoid carrying their own.

I no longer volunteer for that job.

That doesn't mean I don't miss people.

I do.

I miss friendship.

I miss community.

I miss the idea of family.

I think many people do.

More than we admit.

I am not alone.

But sometimes I am lonely.

There is a difference.

Still, I have come a long way.

I continue to meditate.

Stretch.

Walk.

Breathe.

Write.

Plant things.

Collect small pieces of beauty.

Not because these things erase the past.

Because they help create a future.

People sometimes look at what I make now and assume it appeared from nowhere.

The writing.

The art.

The collections.

The website.

The field notes.

What they do not see is that every one of those things grew from ground that had been broken open first.

Cultivation is not denial.

It is what happens after survival.

The storm came.

The damage was real.

I remember all of it.

I simply refuse to make it the only thing growing here.

I know there are people angry at me for not being what they wanted me to be.

I know I was set up for disappointment.

For leaving.

For changing.

For telling the truth.

For refusing to carry things that were never mine.

For surviving in ways they did not approve of.

I am no longer apologizing for any of it.

Especially not for what I know was done to me.

I deserved better than I got.

The bar wasn't even that high.

Funny.

I had to come to a sandbar to discover how low some people were willing to go.

Still.

Here I am.

Planting flowers.

Writing stories.

Collecting milk glass.

Building a life.

Not the one I was given.

The one I chose.

But if I am being truthful, there is a cost to surviving.

I live wondering what will happen to me because of what happened to me.

That is the real cost of the abuse I suffered.

Not only what was done.

But what remained.

Today, I still catch my breath sometimes, afraid of what might be done to me next.

I wish that were not true.

But it is.

So I plant anyway.

I write anyway.

I love anyway.

I build anyway.

Not because the fear is gone.

Because I am still here.