Authentically Me

2023 the year of the authentic me. Hi. My name is Kiyata and my last name was given to me by the man who loved me and raised me as his own but was not my biological father. Whew! I said it. I struggled to write this article. I agonized over it for more than a week. I have hidden this truth about me from so many people and lived in fear that people would find out that I’m a stepchild and my dad is the dad of my brother and sister, but not me. This truth has tormented me because the story it told was one of shame. I didn’t want people to know.

However, this truth kept me in a place of inauthenticity. It kept me hiding from the world because I couldn’t share this truth with others. What would people think? What would they say? What would my family say about revealing this secret? Anytime I would go around my dad’s side of the family, I would feel myself shrink. My eyes would wander, and I would not be my extroverted, fun, and carefree self. I would be caught up with I wonder which of my cousins know? Does their spouse know or do their kids know?

It also kept me from writing the book I know I’m supposed to write. It stopped me from engaging my social media page as I needed and wanted to because I felt like a fake, a phony, a liar. How can I encourage women and expect them to heal from things that I was not healed from myself? How can I expect them to face truths and be free when I was settling for the lie? Well, I “came out” to my church family during a group inner healing session. O man! I cried and I cried, and I cried some more. Dealing with the emotions of why I didn’t want this truth out was painful, but it was necessary.

So now, I’m coming out again and this time there is no stigma… there is no shame…there is only freedom and love. I am loved by both of my fathers (I’ll share in a later article about meeting my biological father). I am free to embrace this truth and be who I am. So…. No more hiding. No more shame. No more running from me. What… running from me? Yeah, I’ve been ducking and dodging the real me for way too long. The crazy part is I didn’t even know I was doing this. For years, I always felt like I was being cloaked. I could never figure out why.

When we hide a part of ourselves, it causes us to be less authentic with ourselves. Being authentic with ourselves and with others means I’m not afraid to be my strengths and my challenges. It means being honest about who I am and whose I am. Being authentic means being free, and that’s me in 2023.