The Woman Warrior

You fought like hell to curate a kingdom for yourself by yourself

You never settled for mediocrity and pushed in the spirit of risk to win it all

You laid it all down, brick by brick, till an edifice stood before the world, reckoning you as the dark horse

You have a few scars, but then again, all great heroines do.

They tore away at you and snipped off your wings but though you were thrown to the wolves, you always came back, leading the pack because you would never go down swinging without a fight.

Enamored in candy plum manicured nails and black and silver studs, you made "grit" the holy grail of your emergence from the "herstory" of pain.

You epitomized Nikita Gill's disaster training. They say that its magnificent how we contain natural disasters within our bodily frames yet I feel that strength is only realized upon the way we harness the disasters' impacts in our lives. You did just that, you started a wildfire by encouraging other women like myself, who have the hearts of lionesses to do the same - to be a savage, unafraid to go to war for what she deserved.

You empowered me with all the weapons to fight our traumas growing up.

You told me that I should never be victim of my upbringing and you don't know how much that line has carried me through all the times when I was tempted to go back to my demons for comfort. It is because of you that I have strength to see through every breakdown, to wipe those tears away and move on in life instead of wallowing like I used to. It is because you showed me all I could be if I, like you, charted out my life apart from what destroyed us at home. Your life will forever be the best testimony to give me purpose in my current battles - you showed me that it will be worth it in the end.

Sometimes I break and withhold from telling you because I fear that I may never match up to your nirvana of self-empowerment but you love me all the same.

After telling you how much I'm proud of how far you've come as a freaking badass independent woman, you eloquently said with the succinct yet significant fashion, "And you will be too."

You made me stand up whenever I wanted to revert back to self pity - as you said:

"Pain is inevitable but suffering is a choice. The sooner you realize that it isn't "basically me", the sooner you'll see that this is just how the world is. Life is hard. We are dealt with our hand of cards and it's our purpose to adapt. And right now, you have a shitty deck of cards. And that's ok because we can't control what deck is given to us. But we can control how we deal. Play until you leave the casino. This is a whole life thing. The point of trying is - to reach a better place. It's always about being one step closer to better. And a better state can be whatever you want it to be. It's ok to be tired and it's ok to break. Break now and then try again tomorrow."

No one understands me like you do in regards to dealing with family issues and though I mayn't have had that textbook happy family, you reminded me of my strength of living through it all. We had our own version of psychological hell, but just when I thought that all those gaslit memories were a figment of my imagination, you always affirm the sheer ludicrity of our situation (and often with a sassy twist, might I add!). As therapists stand back in awe of all the stuff that we have endured, yes true enough, as we always say: "where our trophies? We deserve trophies."

Okay, we shall have our shared trophies in the form of acai bowls, alright gurl?

But, I seriously think that one of the closest forms of trophies you have attained in respect to your life of blood, toil, sweat and tears was your honors degree.

You have no freaking idea how proud I was of you as I witnessed you going up there in your graduation robe after all I knew you went through for those 23 years. And I almost cried after you told me all the inner battles you fought all on your own in your final year. You never boasted about your achievements (except whenever you manage to cook something without causing any kitchen damage LOL). You exhibited what had always aspired to represent - you fought so much in silence but never pleaded for approval or affirmation for you let your art and academic work do all the talking for you.

You made me daring enough to never settle and strive to be that fire.

You chased after every passion you had:

travelling alone

majoring in Philosophy despite naysayers arguing against the practicality of that degree

learning French and Korean

taking amazing photographs and being a master at adobe photoshop

writing poetry

performing your work at spoken word events

You found beauty in the ugliest days and the purpose the meaningless

To jump and not simply fall in the descent but to make my mark every time my feet is buried in the sand ever so often.

There is no better person I could ever be blessed with to show me the way in life other than you.

You are the queen of f*cking everything and no matter what bumps you meet

remember that I will always want to put that flower back in your hair just as you have planted a garden in my mind.

What an immense honor it is, being able to call you my sister.