For years, I kept my shadow at arm’s length—pretending she was a stranger I could outrun if I just moved fast enough. I filled my days with noise and tasks and perfection. I stuffed my nights with distractions, anything to keep from meeting the dark parts of myself eye to eye.
I thought if I slowed down, the past would swallow me.
I thought if I faced the hurts I buried, they would destroy me.
I thought if I acknowledged the pieces I hated, they would consume the rest of me.
But shadows don’t disappear when we outrun them.
They simply stretch longer.
Quieter.
Closer.
It wasn’t until I was too exhausted to keep sprinting that I turned around—and found her waiting. Not malicious. Not monstrous. Just… tired. Just like me.
And that’s when she began to teach me.
She taught me that fear is often a younger version of myself, shaking in a corner, begging to be seen.
Not to punish me.
But to be held.
She taught me that anger wasn’t a flaw—it was a boundary I never felt safe enough to speak.
It was the voice inside me saying,
“I deserved better.”
She taught me that the parts I called “too much” were actually the parts that survived the unthinkable.
They weren’t broken.
They were brilliant.
They kept me alive.
She taught me that the darkness wasn’t trying to drown me—
it was trying to show me where the wounds still lived.
And, maybe most surprising of all:
My shadow taught me compassion.
For myself.
For the girl I was.
For the woman I am becoming.
When I stopped running, I realized she wasn’t chasing me.
She was following me, patiently, carrying the pieces of myself I wasn’t ready to accept—the pain, the memories, the truth, the resilience.
The shadow wasn’t the enemy.
The illusion of separation was.
Now, instead of fleeing from her, I walk with her.
We move as a pair—
crow and flame,
light and dark,
truth and becoming.
And I’m learning, slowly, courageously:
We are never whole until we embrace the parts of ourselves we once feared.
We are never free until we stop running from our own reflection.
Crow and Flame 