“Prove them wrong.” Can I get an Amen? A Hallelujah?
I’m sure I’ve got a backup band, a chorus, a whole legion of people who can relate. When I first saw the graffiti in the featured post, it spoke to me.
And if writing has taught me anything, it’s this: I’m not alone.
Before my last blog, which shared a book I helped co-create, years had passed since I’d written the previous post.
Even though I kept working on my book and other people’s (more author spotlights coming soon), and work was often my happy place, I’d gone quiet again, and I was judging myself harshly for it.
Ironic?
Given that the highest compliment I get from students is that I’m like the nonjudgmental mother they never had, maybe.
Intermittently, I told myself it was a strategy—to keep myself and my kids safe during divorce—and that’s partially true. Anything I said, and even a completely irrelevant hat I once wore, were used against me in a court of law.
That impossible bind—my need to write & my protective instinct was a harrowing line to walk; one I know so many of us have, sadly, walked before or are walking right now. Fear creates a freeze response, and it can take some time to thaw. So to all of you who are still here, still reading, still fans, thank you.
Last year, I heard myself say to a very dear person in my life, “You don’t have to prove anything to me.” A few months later, at a cherry blossom festival, amidst the beauty of a stunning variety of blossoms, I saw the graffiti on the bridge in the featured post. When it resonated with me, the way I suspect it resonates with you, I knew I still had healing to do.
Cherry blossoms represent the fleeting nature and beauty of life, new beginnings, vitality, the arrival of spring, and hope after winter. You may not be able to make them out here, the way my site has cropped the picture, but they’re there in the background, all around—78 jaw-droppingly gorgeous varieties of cherry blossoms. And though I so desperately wanted to be entirely in the new beginning season of my life, old echoes of doubt lingered in the cold wind and rain that day.
The words “prove them wrong” reminded me of the persistent threats leveled at me before I left my old life: “You’ll never make it on your own.”
For a time, the words haunted every attempt at independence. As I found my footing, silence seemed like survival—but it also felt like it was killing me. Living with the ache of knowing that my absence left space for false narratives, and feeling complicit in my own erasure (or worse, my vilification) was heavy, among other heavy lifts.
Turns out, becoming the villain in other people’s stories is one of the most freeing things that’s ever happened to me. We’ll go there in another post, but suffice it to say, I couldn’t have seen that without silence, another gift.
For someone who’s built a life around self-expression, silence is never neutral, and it exacts a cost. Keenly aware of the weight of holding back—protecting ourselves and those we love — we feel the sting of betraying the truths we care about most, the ones we know will move us forward.
After all, writers gotta write.
Beneath the silence, and further still, beneath the gremlins’ voices, “You’ll never make it on your own,” a small voice whispered: Prove them wrong. At first, that provocation felt urgent—like motivation, like a goal, like the only path the Queens girl in me had ever known to getting her groove back. A little prove them wrong, a well-placed fuck you, and there’d be little else to do, right?
Nah, not again. Loves, I was so tired. And when I heard myself say, “You don’t have to prove anything to me,” I realized if I could say that to someone I love, I could give that same grace to myself. I don’t want to waste another moment of my precious life proving others wrong. I’d rather let my heart, my life, my writing speak for itself. I’d rather conserve my energy for more magic.
That’s when silence began to feel like a sanctuary. A place where I could live even deeper into my evolving knowing and rest while I did it: I don’t have to prove anything to anyone. I don’t have to speak from a place that’s reactionary. I can continue with my word of 2025: alchemy.
There’s a time in many writers’ journeys where the most important “work” to do is to live in a place where breathing is enough, knowing you’ll speak out when the moment is right, when you feel safe and free, when you’ve built capacity.
When my words carry the energy of love and wisdom, I can live even more fully in my own light and shine it, one breath/word, then another, and so on. When my wishes and my words are aligned with who I’ve become, who I’m becoming still, I don’t have to prove anything to anyone; I get to be. Turns out, this love is always here for me.
If you feel silenced by circumstances, by people, by fear, you know the tension: the ache between asserting your voice and protecting yourself, between the truth that burns in your throat and the wisdom that whispers, wait.
"Aspetta. Aspetta,” Italian for wait. I can hear my grandmother calling after child-me, running ahead impetuously.
You don’t need to run ahead. You don’t need to run headlong into your fears. Live into your truth. You don’t need to prove anything. Presence, patience, courage, and unconditional love will loosen the cords that silence you: The patriarchy, your parents, your partner, your conditioned self. If you’re proving them wrong, you’re still bound. And when the moment to break free comes, your voice will emerge fully, unmistakably, and on your terms.
Until then, it’s okay to wait.
I’ll be here. With love, always,
Clementina