This is Me

🎵 Inspired by "This Is Me" — The Greatest Showman → Listen

There are some songs that you hear. And then there are songs that somehow manage to say something you didn't know you needed to say. This Is Me from The Greatest Showman is one of those songs for me.

I can remember hearing it and thinking, Yes! This! This is what I've been trying to say.

Not because I've always felt brave. I haven't. Not because I haven't been bruised. I have. And definitely not because I've always felt like I belonged exactly as I am.

It's because there is something powerful about reaching that point where you finally stop trying to convince yourself—and everyone else—that you need to be different to be worthy. You stop shrinking. You stop apologizing. You stop treating the parts of yourself that don't fit neatly into the expectations of other people as evidence that something is wrong with you.

And you say, this IS me.

I know that moment. Maybe you do too.

The Shrinking

Somewhere along the way, a lot of us learned to make ourselves smaller. Quieter about the forgetfulness. Quicker with the apology. Better at looking like we had it together, even when the inside of our minds felt like static.

We learned how to compensate. How to mask. How to work twice as hard to make something look effortless.

And for mothers of color, there can be another layer to that. Because we weren't always given much room to be scattered, overwhelmed, forgetful, emotional, or still figuring things out. We were expected to be strong. Capable. Responsible. Composed. Fine.

So we got really, really good at fine. And sometimes, being "fine" meant nobody knew how much energy it took to keep everything—and everyone—together.

The Turn

But here's what I've come to believe, both as a psychologist and as a woman who has spent a lot of time thinking about what it means to be wonderfully, imperfectly human: your ADHD brain is not a mistake.

It isn't something you have to apologize for before you can begin to understand it. It isn't a character flaw. It isn't evidence that you're lazy, careless, undisciplined, or somehow failing at this thing called motherhood. It is part of how you are wired.

Psalm 139:14 gives me language for something I've come to believe deeply. In The Message version, it reads: "Body and soul, I am marvelously made." Not just fearfully and wonderfully made, the way we usually hear it. Marvelously made.

That isn't decoration for me. It is foundational. Because the same brain that forgets what she walked into a room to do can make connections other people don't see. The same mind that struggles to sit still through a meeting can generate six creative solutions before everyone else has finished describing the problem. The same woman who can become completely overwhelmed by the sheer number of things on her mental list can also be the woman who shows up with extraordinary creativity, intuition, compassion, determination, and vision.

The bruises are real. So is the beauty. Both can be true. At the same time.

This Is Marvelously Made

That's why I created this space. For the mother who is tired of feeling like she has to choose between being honest about the hard parts and being proud of who she is.

You don't have to choose. You get to bring the whole thing. The forgotten appointments and the wisdom. The overwhelm and the strength that got you through it anyway. The unfinished projects and the creativity that made you start them in the first place. The moments you felt like too much and the realization that maybe you were never too much at all.

Maybe you were simply trying to fit yourself into spaces that were never designed with you in mind. And maybe it's time to stop. Not to stop growing. Not to stop learning. Not to stop finding strategies that make life work better. But to stop believing that becoming more functional means becoming less you.

This is what Marvelously Made is about. It's about understanding the brain you have, instead of constantly criticizing the brain you wish you had. It's about motherhood, ADHD, identity, faith, relationships, work, overwhelm, resilience, and all the beautiful messiness in between. It's about learning to use your gifts without pretending the hard parts aren't hard. It's about making room for the whole woman.

Because you were never required to be perfect to be worthy. You were never required to have it all together to be enough. And you were never required to become somebody else to become the woman God created you to be.

So maybe this is the moment we stop shrinking. Maybe this is the moment we stop apologizing for taking up space. Maybe this is the moment we look at all of it—the beautiful, the complicated, the unfinished, the misunderstood—and finally say:

This is me. This is you. This is Marvelously Made.