“What is REAL?" asked the Velveteen Rabbit one day... "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When [someone] loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept.
"Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand... once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always.”
Over the course of the last few years, I have been on quite a journey. In the process, I have come to know myself, the real me, better than I could have ever imagined. As I've traveled through this space, I have hesitated to tell my story because telling the story made it real. As long as I didn't talk about it, even to myself, it wasn't real. It was fear of the unknown, fear of other peoples judgement, fear of their ignorance that kept whispering, "No one wants to see this part of you. They won't understand. They will think you are ugly and it will never be the same again once you say it out loud." However, there came a point where I couldn't breathe any longer because this secret was suffocating me. I began to tell my story. To own my truth. To be transparent and vulnerable to those that I hold dearest to me.
It was during this time that I picked up a copy of 'The Velveteen Rabbit' for my daughter. It sat on her shelf for the longest time before we read it. The night came that it was the choice book, and we began to read. When I came to the section that I have quoted above, my heart stopped and the light bulb in my head switched on. How could I have ever thought that being real was a bad thing? When I started to truly love and accept myself, I became real and there is nothing about it that is ugly. The bumps and bruises, the battle scars, they don't matter. They mean I have fought for something and that is beautiful. Tears streamed down my face as that realization dawned on me. Sitting there in a tiny bed with a toddler on my lap, I had one of the most amazing revelations of my life. I offered up a prayer of gratitude as I wept at all of the beautiful real life around me. Sweet, chubby fingers reached up to dry my face as I tried to explain that sometimes mommies cry when they are happy too.
There will still be people that will not understand, who will think that this real is ugly. But there are many more who love me so hard, that they have given me the courage to be real. Those who don't see anything but the beauty in becoming real.
To those who saw the beauty before I did, I am, and always will be, eternally grateful.
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