Still I Rise.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately, as I often do, about this process we call “life,” and how we make our way through it. Where do we get the eyes to see our path and the touch to feel our way? Where do we get the courage to shine and the weakness to shrink? How do we come to define ourselves, whether good or bad, and who do we let decide our own identity?

Several years ago, I experienced the worst reality I could have ever imagined. My life turned completely upside down and I felt as though I was alone on a raft in the middle of an endless ocean with no sight of the shore. Everything in my life collapsed…I failed myself personally, I failed at my marriage and I failed professionally. All I wanted to do was to retreat. I was ready to wave my white flag.

And I almost did. But something primal set in—my inner will came out and the fighter I knew I was born to be came to the surface and said “hold on just a minute!”

In that moment, I could have chosen anything. I had so many options available. I could have defined myself by my own feelings…a failure, an idiot, a lost soul, a tortured artist, a troubled little girl. And I could have blamed so many others for my misfortunes, for undoubtedly, there are many lives that have affected me and helped shape who I am today.

But what I chose instead was to take personal responsibility for my own life. To realize that I am the only one who has the right or privilege to define myself. As Virginia Woolf so eloquently said, everyone is “allowed some say in the matter of her own prescription. Thereby she defines her humanity.”

This crazy world has tried so hard to push me down and there are days when it has succeeded. But still I rise. And I know that I think too much and feel too much and care too much and that makes me vulnerable to so many experiences. But I’d rather be vulnerable and feel…than to be protected and not.

This journey is not over. I have so many more things to work on. I am not even half of what I am meant to be. But still I rise.

Still I Rise.

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.