Finally me

For as long as memory reaches back,

I called myself a tomboy.

Climbing trees,

busting knees,

covered in dirt and mud like a second skin.

I never saw myself as “girly.”

In fact,

I flinched at the word.

To be called girly felt like an insult,

a softness I wasn’t allowed to hold.

So I wore those comments like armor,

those labels like a shield.

If I was tough enough, strong enough, unbreakable enough,

no one could take it from me.

Because getting dirty didn’t scare me,

working hard didn’t scare me,

lifting heavy didn’t scare me.

But being seen?

Being soft?

Being a girl?

Somehow that did.

I told myself I wasn’t girly because I didn’t like pink,

or makeup,

or doing my nails,

or playing with Barbies.

But the truth was,

I didn’t have access to those things.

I didn’t have the chance.

So I learned not to want what I couldn’t have.

And that, too, became armor.

My teen years were nothing but survival

moving schools like flipping calendar pages,

working 40+ hours a week

while pretending I didn’t need anything

that made me look or feel like a girl.

No dresses.

No makeup.

No soft edges.

No space to figure out who I really was.

So I became the wall.

I became the worker.

I became the tough one.

A tomboy because survival demanded it.

Because I had no choice.

Because wanting more meant feeling the ache of what was out of reach.

But adulthood brought something new soil to plant the seed.

A whisper of testimony.

A slow unfurling of healing.

And through this journey

I learned that

being a tomboy was never my identity.

It was my survival.

I wasn’t rejecting girlhood

I simply never had access to it.

So I convinced myself

I didn’t need it.

Didn’t want it.

Didn’t miss it.

Because longing hurts

when you have nothing to long with.

But healing…

Healing opened my hands.

Healing let me breathe.

Healing showed me

that I love purple,

and flowers,

and soft moments that make the world slow down.

Healing taught me

that life is more than surviving.

That I am allowed to take up space.

That who I am becoming

was written in me long before the world tried to label me.

I was born worthy,

and so were you.

Nothing and no one can take that from us.

Through healing I learned

I didn’t have to become my survival.

That I have always loved girly things

even when survival demanded I hide her.

But now?

Now I don’t have to.

I am not my childhood.

I am not my past.

I am not the chains I was born into.

I am me.

Fully. Freely. Finally.

I can work hard

and still be soft.

I can be strong

and still love purple.

I can carry my story

without letting it define my identity.

Surviving made me a tomboy.

Healing gave me back myself.

And now, without labels, without expectations,

I embrace who I was always meant to be.

Me