Not Every Open Door is Mine

I deleted the email.

That may sound small, but it didn’t feel small to me.

It came in the days after ceremony, when everything in me was still raw, open, and reorganizing around truths I could no longer ignore. I was tender, but also clearer than I had been in a long time. Something in me had shifted from the old impulse to push, prove, and say yes before I had fully listened.

The email was an invitation to write for another anthology. The theme was close enough to my work and to what had been moving through me that, at another time in my life, I probably would have said yes before I had even fully felt what it was asking of me.

Visibility.

Another publication.

Another place to be included.

Another chance to put my name in a book and prove, again, that I belonged in the world of writers.

But I never set out simply to be a writer.

Writing is one of the ways I metabolize my experience. Like painting, like fabric, like making with my hands, it is a way to see what is moving through me. A way to listen. A way to give form to what I couldn’t understand in any other way.

So when the invitation appeared, part of me was drawn to it. I could feel how easily I might use the opportunity to digest the recent ceremony revelations and turn them into something others could read.

But this time, something in me hesitated.

Not because the theme was wrong. In some ways, it was very aligned.

Women choosing themselves.

Refusing to stay small.

No longer building their lives around everyone else’s expectations.

These are truths I know intimately. Ceremony had just driven them through me in ways I hadn’t expected.

I could have written volumes from that place.

But the container didn’t feel right anymore.

That was the difference.

I could feel it in my body.

It wasn’t a dramatic no.

It was quieter than that.

A pause.

A tightening.

A recognition that the opportunity itself may have been fine, but it was not right for where I am now. The old part of me would have pushed past that. She would have talked herself into the value of exposure, the usefulness of another publication, the possibility of being seen by someone new.

But something in me has become less willing to override the truth of my own response.

What I have to share now deserves its own container, one designed to hold it with the dignity, depth, and gravity it requires.

That's the shift.

I am beginning to understand that not every opportunity is an invitation I need to accept. Not every open door is a door I need to walk through. Not every place that offers visibility is a place where my work belongs.

For a long time, I confused visibility with validation. I wanted to be included. Seen. Taken seriously. Named among women I admired. And those earlier spaces served a purpose.

They helped me practice taking myself seriously as a writer. They helped me build confidence in what I had to say. They helped me step forward when I was still learning how to let my voice be heard.

But I'm not in that same place now.

Something fundamental has changed.

I no longer want visibility at the expense of alignment. I no longer want my work held in containers that don’t match its depth, tone, or truth. I no longer want to say yes just because something is available, or because some part of me still fears that if I don’t take the opportunity, another one may not come.

That fear is old.

And I no longer allow it to make decisions for me.

This isn't about thinking I am above anyone. It’s about recognizing that my work has a gravity of its own, and I’m responsible for where I place it. I’m responsible for the company it keeps. I’m responsible for the spaces I allow to hold it.

Just as I’m responsible for everything I allow into my life.

More than ever before, I know the value of my experience and what I create from it.

That feels new.

Or maybe it isn’t new at all. Maybe it‘s the part of me that has always known the difference between being visible and being truly seen.

I’ve spent so much precious life force asking others to see me before I had fully learned how to see myself. And because of that, I often gave myself away to people and spaces that didn’t have the capacity to truly see me at all.

Visibility came at too high a cost when I placed myself where I was still invisible.

Today, I chose differently.

I chose not to enter a space that didn’t feel right.

I didn’t over-explain it.

I didn’t talk myself into it.

I deleted the email.

What I protected in that moment was not only my time. It was the quiet place where the real work is still forming, the part of me that no longer wants to rush every revelation into usefulness, and the dignity of what is still evolving.

And something in me exhaled.

If this reflection stirred something in you, perhaps it is simply another thread asking to be followed.

You'll find more reflections, artwork, and the journey that became Remembering Myself – A Journey Through the Threads of Time woven throughout this space.

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