Rebirth - Take Two

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

About a million years ago…sometime in February 2022 - I reimagined myself, made significant changes, and entered the public realm again here on Substack as I wished myself to be; confident, devoted, and ready to ‘Write Like A Mother Fucker’ as Cheryl Strayed’s Dear Sugar column once said about thirteen years ago.

Hahahahahaha and…I’m not laughing.

A million years ago…(it feels that way sometimes) I had a rebirth of sorts and thought I was ready to share myself uninhibitedly with the world again (my Substack account was previously named The Uninhibited Pen -Nothing Left Unsaid) and the truth is…I soooo wasn’t ready to share myself back then. Around that time, on Valentine’s Day 2022 specifically, I signed divorce papers and it wasn’t a celebration of personal freedom or financial relief. It was fucking awful.

It was a day of profound grief and disbelief. I was absolutely heartbroken and couldn’t believe my marriage was really over. And in the midst of that legal severing, there I was, doing my best to ‘succeed’ by trying again. What a failure that was. But let me be kind to myself for a moment…

Anytime I’ve started over in my life - a new job, a new home, a new man, a new creative endeavor - despite feeling like a rebirth of sorts - there I’ve been, the same flawed human being trying my best to be beautiful in the outside world while my inside world still roared ugly.

Dear Sweet Lila, it’s only taken fifty-four years and a tragic ending to a sweet-as-a-marriage-could-be-marriage to arrive at one of your deepest truths…you’re beautiful regardless of your flaws and your failures.

And just by the way, so are you, dear reader of I Am The Dance, the renamed Substack of the aforementioned flawed and rebirthed writer known as Lila Danielle.

As I begin this public writing journey again on February 14, 2023, I hope you’ll stick around as I share prose, poems, playlists, and photos every Sunday that not only reveal my own embodied truths of being human, but encourage you to share yours as well with me.

Onward with the dance…