The Lie I Believe(d)

I would skate up and down my block in Brooklyn.  Not skate.  Blade.  I loved my roller blades.  I remember a camp trip to Chelsea Piers; I danced in my roller blades!  We bought my favorite pair from Toys 'R' Us -- the one down the road from Kings Plaza.  I loved my roller blades.

Now, here I was, in graduate school... at a fun event with my colleagues... and I could hardly stand.  My sister, the one who I taught to blade, was now holding me up.  She pulled me around the rink while I shrieked with bits of excitement and lots of fear.  Every time I mustered up the courage to try a solo skate, I fell... hard.  I could not keep my balance.  My core was weak.

During that time, I was fragile.  It was as if all the wounds I had endured presented splinters in my heart that were all meeting at one critical point. I was breaking apart.  Katy Perry's "Firework" became my motivational song because she sings "Do you ever feel/like a plastic bag/drifting through the wind/wanting to start again?"  That's what I felt like. I was experiencing a dearth of joy, peace, clarity, direction, guidance, and truth.  I remember days when I had to remind myself to simply take a breath. I could not see.  I especially could not see ME.

I searched for relief.  I searched for freedom.  I searched for counsel.  I had to find out what was in my weak core.  There was a lie I was believing.  It went something like this: "Elise, you're not worth the time or effort.  Elise nobody wants you.  You're a mistake." I was believing that I had to work for the affections of my family and friends; I believed that they merely tolerated me.
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I was born in a Jewish hospital.  A rabbi blesses each baby that is born there.  (My mother likes to remind me that I was the only brown baby in the nursery lol.)  The rabbi brought me to my mom and said, "God says this is a special baby."  If God calls me special then how can I be a mistake or unloved?

My core is getting stronger day by day.  It is being filled with God's truth.  I am created for this time.  I am wanted. I am loved, not just tolerated.  I can stand now.  I can fight.  WARRIOR PRINCESS GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!