Everyone is on a journey to find their true self; in my case it has been a long one full of heartache and feeling misplaced but ultimately finding my happy. Self-Love in my case was the hardest wall to breakdown in finding my true self. The journey has been long one which started when, as a kid, I never felt like I fit in. I was always too dark or too light to fit into the cliques that surrounded me. My family was not as helpful as they should’ve been which resulted in me never believing them when they said, “you are uniquely beautiful.” Being darker than my immediate family make strangers question my father being my father and made me feel completely isolated growing up. All of this built up throughout my life until I met my husband who helped shape me into the woman I am today and build my self-love.
Happy
My husband and I met playing lacrosse in college at Birmingham-Southern University. We met through friends and became close over a period of weeks. Basically I looked at him and knew I needed him in my life. I tricked him into hanging out with me alone and embarrassingly told him I was going to marry him after our first “sleepover”. Looking back now I realize that making my husband fall in love with me was the best thing I’ve ever done. He was the first person to look at me like I was more than the color of my skin, it was never an issue for him. As much as I have trouble with ignoring my skin color and loving myself, he dismisses those fears and loves me anyways. With his love I have found my happy which was multiplied when we found out we were pregnant with our first little love.
My Crunchy Life
Finding out we were pregnant was the best and most insane day of our lives. We got engaged a week prior to seeing those two pink lines. One morning I randomly decided to take a test because it was weird that I had to pee every morning at five am. My husband’s reaction was amazing and during the pregnancy he made me feel fulfilled. The more we studied pregnancy, childbirth, and midwifery the closer we became, through becoming parents we found our true selves by becoming who we needed to be for each other. . When we decided on home birth for Killian we dove into a whole new crunchy world. We learned about cloth diapering, babywearing, vaccination debates, extended breastfeeding, chiropractic care in pregnancy, and so much more! These words became a regular part of our vocabulary and led to me deciding to start my own business, LaVie Bebe. This whole crunchy world was so inclusive I knew that I had found my “people,” friends I could open up to and not feel ashamed of who I am. During my first pregnancy I had high anxiety not knowing if my son would come out looking like me at all but with my new found community I felt supported either way. This community helped solidify how I felt about myself and boosted my journey of self-love. My true self was believing that I could achieve anything through love, happiness, and my crunchy community. I finally found my purpose to smile and start to love myself regardless of what I look like on the outside or what my family looks like to others.
My True Self
“You are special, You are loved, You matter, You are BEAUTIFUL”
