My early morning workspace.

 
The truth is,
everyone is battling with something.
Whether it be an external conflict
or an inner demon -
no one person is exempt.

That’s the deal we make - that’s the human experience.

Whether you are deep in the fury of your storms
or the pendulum swing has temporarily granted you mercy,
I think we must take a minute
to pay a homage to our pain.

Because the reality is,
some of the most beautiful aspects
of who we are,
were once shaped by the darkest days of our lives. 

Think about it...

Your convictions. 
Your truths. 
Your battle wounds. 

Your deeply ingrained strength that held you together when everything seemed to crash around you...
​
was welded together
from all the things that once broke you. 

Our scars are what make us beautiful. 

If it weren’t for the soul-crushing,
slide-down-the-wall-with-my-head-in-my-hands,
cry-until-I-can’t-breathe
loss and rejection I experienced at a young age,
I wouldn’t be here today. 

And here..
where I stand in this moment,
is so much better
than anything I could have ever dreamed of.

Stand proud.
Stand TALL.
You are stronger than you think. 
And it is only because you have fought your way through.

Your wounds have become your wings. 

So keep on keeping on,

you tough little thing, you. 

I remember his hands the most.
 
You could tell they were the sort of hands that had seen a few things. His veins popped from beneath his fragile, paper-thin skin. His joints were swollen and crooked from years of cleaning floors and fixing roofs, yet soft enough to have held a few babies and probably even more grand babies. I went to bed that night under a single flickering light hanging from the crumbling cathedral ceiling and wrote in my leather-bound notebook, 
 
"I have just met my Egyptian grandfather."