7. You are safe here.

In 2019, I realized one of my dreams: my business’ products were featured in Anthropologie stores for a trial food concept. I got the email as I sat outside in the September sun, and immediately ran inside my shop, turned the music on loud and danced for 10 minutes. I wore my emotions and my vulnerability on my sleeve. I don’t remember what song I played.

I used to dance and twirl around when I accomplished my goals or when something delightful surprised me. High kicks were a regular use of celebratory energy, especially when something tasted good.

Then 2020. And teh year after the pandemic that was still a pandemic. And the year after that. Personal sense of safety moved from public spaces to private ones. Communities banded together for a while. But eventually, we devolved into a game of every person for themselves. We formed our own tribes and did our best to survive. We withdrew. We attacked the Other. We walked on eggshells socially and politically, feeling tangibly the delicate balance of … everything.

Something about the pandemic and the following years taught that vulnerable, dancing part of me that she wasn’t safe. That joy could be stolen. That our dreams can simply be swept out to sea. Something about the last four years sent that part of me into hiding.

I didn’t lose my business during hte pandemic, but I lost my naïveté. My seemingly shatterproof belief that anything was possible that somehow I had held onto through the last year of my twenties.

In the years following the pandemic, I found myself lookin gofr the girl I once was. Where had the high kicks gone? And the dance parties? The uninhibited joy? I am more reserved now than I was in my 20s. Maybe I’ve been hardened by life and business, or maybe I have enjoyed the safety of pandemic-induced reclusivity.

But really the question I’ve been asking myself lately is, “Why am I so afraid of being myself?”

Brene Brown tells me that throughout adulthood, we all learn to conceal our joy. Survival instinct, perhaps, when we endure hard things.

For me, the reality of the pandemic spoke with a straight face, “Lauren, you can’t be a kid anymore. You have to grow up. You have to wipe that smile off your face and do what’s necessary to survive.”

I’m not sure that we fully recover from our survival instincts if we don’t take the time to go find those vulnerable people we’ve shoved into the closets of our souls. Until we go inward, and start turning on the lights. Flick, flick. Anybody home?

Until we call out our names,
until we find that corner where the child in us cowers,
until we grab hold of our own hands
walk ourselves back into the light
and whisper,
You are safe here.