Seeing The Reality Of You

March 2, 2026

Seeing the reality of you

Sometime towards the end of October last year, reality got my attention. It had been screaming at me for a moment. For more than a moment, if I’m being honest. It started off quietly storming, gentle spring rains drenching me through—just enough to make me question my comfort. When I did not take action, it started to smack me across the cheek, finally dumping me into treacherous waters while thunderstorms roared from above: do what reality says you need to do before something very bad happens.

I heard it, the whole time. I heard the quiet storms, pushed through the gentle rains. I felt the sting of the smacks and treaded the dangerous waters with a practiced expertise. With intention—I sat in gratitude, because there was genuinely so much to be grateful for, and from inside of that gratitude, I simply could not fathom what reality seemed to be saying. And even more than that, I did not think I had it in me to do what it was telling me I had to do. I had always weathered these kinds of storms, you see. It was normal, so why was there all of a sudden this need for me to extricate myself from the eye?

And so, reality did what reality does: it got my attention by any means necessary; grabbed it—vehemently snatched it—through a series of unfortunate events. And when those events threatened the health of my children, I finally picked up and did what I had to do. It’s important to note here, that the threat had to be to someone other than me to make me finally take action.

The lesson is not yet done, and so the details are not quite as important as the smaller parts of the lesson I am still integrating in bits and pieces: Love yourself, Paula. Love yourself enough to be grateful AND realize that you are worth more. That you are worth everything. That you deserve the stars and the moon and the sun and the whole damned universe…along with bunny rabbits, and rose gardens, and foxes that move through your back yard like they own the neighborhood, and gangster deer that eyeball you—daring you to approach and interrupt their evening meal from your back yard garden.

Love yourself enough to know that your vibration is higher than the things you have surrounded yourself with and you no longer belong there, with those things that do not align with who you are. Love yourself enough to elevate.

This morning, social media served up this lesson in yet another way. I did what I always do and opened up the blue app to check in with the daily news, see what friends were up to, and give myself a few minutes to wipe the crust out the corners of my eyes. But the first story I saw was not the usual report from political historian Heather Cox Richardson, summarizing the less than savory events of our nation from the day before and giving me all the information I needed—replete with references—so I would not feel the need to doom scroll—no. I was slapped in the face with an image. Punched. Assaulted with a bright-eyed, youthful face, one carefully made up by uncertain hands; cheeks basted in natural rouge from a stuffy room filled with entertainers and happy crowds sharing over-priced appetizers and shouting to be heard over the music; forehead shining from the exciting events of the evening, smile so wide with joy it threatened to break away from the face entirely—lifted up to the heavens on the wings of happiness.

I saw a face glowing with happiness; a microsecond captured forever on film.

Joy. There was joy there, so much joy, and I forgot, for a moment, that the image, was of me.

Where was I? Why was I so fucking happy? And then the memories came back: walking the streets of San Francisco, my eternally slow pace never quite able to keep up with the crowd. The man I was kinda-sorta dating walking about 30 paces ahead of me with my friend, because they moved quickly and I did not, and I waved them on, watching their animated conversation from behind, loud and raucous and filled with excitement and happy gestures and me lagging behind, wondering what they were talking about. Finally approaching the venue we were headed for and seeing them waiting for me in front, so deeply engaged in conversation they barely noticed I was there.

I remember the moment so vividly. As usual, I was sitting in gratitude, violently pushing away any discomfort that appeared in that moment, which is exactly the place I had been comfortably sitting when reality came to visit up close and personal at the end of October last year. I did not think about the danger of a (clearly) suburban girl walking the streets of San Francisco (or any major city) on her own. I did not let my mind linger on the fact that the man I was supposed to be with was instead, walking with the woman who claimed to be my friend, both of them happy to leave me behind at my gentle suggestion that they did not have to wait for me but should go ahead without me. I did not give enough respect or acknowledgement to the strain of those San Francisco hills on my asthmatic lungs as I was struggling to walk; instead focusing all blame for my slowness on a body perpetually told it was too big, too slow, not enough..and I did not want my friend and my boyfriend(???) to witness the shame I felt at not being able to keep up with them. And so I told them to go on ahead, like I tell everyone to go on ahead, and they did.

But I was grateful. I was so grateful to be in a real city, doing real things without the stigma of the religious cult I had escaped telling me that everything I was doing was wrong. Without my family telling me I was stupid, and doing unnecessary things, and doing too much, and doing things I had no business doing, and with the wrong people who didn’t even like me, and heading to places I had no business heading to. Without anyone telling me I would be punished for existing. And so I moved slowly, joy and excitement mixing with gratitude at the thought of whatever was waiting for me and as I sank into that feeling, I let myself be curious about what it would feel like to have a normal evening, unencumbered by the judgment of others. I let myself feel the freedom I had bought by leaving everything I had known 3000 miles behind me.

And so I didn’t let it matter to me that my “friends” had left me. I was too excited to be out in the world doing all the things; too curious about what was to come to be concerned that maybe I shouldn’t have suggested they go ahead, leaving me alone in the city streets at night, and too preoccupied to acknowledge that they most certainly should not have acquiesced to that particular request.

Once we were seated and the shell-shock of the menu prices wore off, the show began. This was not a show like I had ever seen before. I hadn’t been completely sheltered from all of life; I’d been to comedy shows and concerts; attended poetry readings and plays, and done those things that had been deemed appropriate to do—so the concerts had to be pop music and the comedy performed by comedians who did not curse. But I knew about shows.

I did not know about these types of shows, though. As transgender folks prepared to dazzle us with their best, I had no idea what to expect and as exciting as I thought it would be, it turned out to be both unceremonious and extraordinarily profound. Performers would kind of just pop up one at a time and do their thing. Unlike a concert or comedy show, there were some long stretches between performances. There was no real headliner; no vocals to be in awe over, and the dancing was not exactly at the level of Michael Jackson…but what I came away from that evening with was surprising to me: these were people who were truly, authentically THEMSELVES.

Some of the performers were absolute perfection. Their hair, makeup, costumes….perfection. Beautiful beyond words, like works of art.

Some of the performers were absolutely normal, unsculpted figures making no attempt to hide behind hair and makeup, faces that had somehow avoided being returned to youth by surgeons with carefully wielded scalpels, decades of life’s experience stamped over every inch of the body.

And nobody cared because that’s not what mattered. What mattered was that every single person put themselves up on that stage with all they had, sharing passion with the crowd, being vulnerable in public in a way I had never known was allowed, being true to who they were and what they loved. It was like for a brief moment, they opened themselves up to the core and you could SEE them. You could see them. And it was so beautiful. And so I opened up too, glowing with joy and happiness.

And in that moment, somebody snapped that picture of my joy, capturing it forever.

And then it was over and I buttoned myself all the way back up, knowing it would never be safe enough for me to be that free, that beautiful, that openly vulnerable…but so happy I had found people who had figured out how to do what I felt I could not do. Ever.

This is the memory that assaulted me when I woke this morning. These are the memories that came flooding back.

I looked so young—SO YOUNG!!! I had to do the calculations…how old was I, in this photo? After some quick counting, I realized I was 36 years old, and that every couple of decades, this same thing happens. I am faced with a photo of old, recognize how beautiful I was, and I wonder what the hell is wrong with me that I couldn’t see that beauty in the moment and embrace it, and just be me, and just be FREE…I mean, even if I was not beautiful, why not embrace the moment, appreciate my breath and just BE? What does beauty even have to do with it?

This morning though, I recognized that here lately, for the first time ever, I’ve begun to look in the mirror and see the beauty. I see the bags under my eyes and the lines across my face. I see the hair that I haven’t given proper attention to in a couple of weeks and the raggedy clothes of a woman who spends far too much time feeding and nourishing everyone else, making sure they have what they need to get through every moment of the day and then still—STILL—taking shortcuts through the things she needs her damned self. Feet not manicured in far too long; skin not nourished with oils and lotions like it needs to be; makeup not even a passing thought. But I’m not 36 anymore, so when I look in the mirror I see the beauty, too. I see it all. Like those performers, something inside of me has opened up, and I can see ME. And I don’t see the face first, I see the core; the vibration of me. I feel who I am, and then those little features pop out at me—the pretty eyes, slanted like almonds. The full lips, perfectly proportioned. The cheeks, somehow both round with joy and regal with the cheekbones of my ancestors. There is a glow of happiness, even through the darkness of the circles under my eyes and I can see the beauty. I can see the vibration of who I am.

But that lesson from reality last year reminds me that I do not always see the worth. And that will be my undoing.

And so tonight, I look back at the last few months not with righteous anger for what I was put through, or blind gratitude for what I was given and how I was held, but with an eye that integrates the all: all I have endured, all I was blessed with, all that I learned, and all the learning that is yet to come.

And I will love myself. I will love myself enough to realize that I am worth more. That I’m worth everything. That I deserve the stars and the moon and the sun and the whole damned universe…along with bunny rabbits, and rose gardens, and foxes that move through the back yard like they own the neighborhood, and gangster deer that eyeball me—daring me to approach and interrupt their evening meal from my garden.

I know my vibration, now. I SEE IT. And it is worth everything.