We are the people who came before us: the crooked, the loving, the boring, the extraordinary, the joyous, the depressed, the sick, the healthy, the poor, the wealthy. You cannot forever shun your roots; you can only walk with them attached to the soles you own. You cannot forever pretend to forget and wish to not be a part of them.

This is growing up: accepting your source, accepting that you are coded in the system as a part of a larger picture and sometimes, that picture isn't the one you wanted it to be - whether for your own conscience or another particular reason. The challenge is to love yourself greater than what exists now and to love the ashes, the shadows that led you to be.

How long will you dwell on the mistakes of the past? How long will it take you to forgive the wombs that birthed you? How long will you forget that you are made of them, too?