Unapologetically Me: A Journey of Self-Reflection

On the last day of the congress, my friends and I collapsed onto our hotel beds and talked. We talked about life in a long, meandering conversation, about where we’re from and where we’re going—a couple of murmuring voices trading fragments of their souls as the digital clock ticked upward into the dead of the night.

Sometimes things align in ways you don’t expect, and there’s no telling when you’ll experience an encounter that will change you. The day before I left for the congress, I was in a job interview. The manager looked at me and said that I needed to figure out what came next because it seemed I didn’t want to be there. He was right.

It was the second day of the congress when I attended a workshop by Dr. Renee Horton called “Unapologetically Me” in this big ballroom. I remember watching as people began to fill this grandiose room while Dr. Horton and her friends distributed her book Reframe Your Picture: From Surviving to Thriving. It was a workbook centered around building a life you want, turning just passing the days into living them. Throughout the entire workbook, her own story was sprinkled as a guiding presence.

I remember the way the lights caught on her face as she looked into the crowd and told us what she’d lived through, the good and the bad. I remember the way she spoke when she talked about her childhood love of science, of her parents’ divorce, her own divorce, and other big experiences in her life. One of the things she emphasized over and over again was how important community is, for both her and the audience. It was almost subconscious, the way my eyes flicked across the table, taking in the two friends who had come with me from halfway across the country and through two years of college.

A contemplative silence would descend upon the room whenever Dr. Horton directed us to work on a section, or so it felt to me. My two friends and I sat around a table, necks craned over the book as our pens flew. No one spoke, just the sounds of scribbling on paper. One section was on recognizing survival mode, another on stagnation and overcoming it. We put plans in place, acknowledged what we needed to let go of, and made a list of the things that truly made us want to live our lives, not just pass through them.

I type all this with her book sitting next to me, thumbing through the pages with one hand while admiring the eager, rushed scrawl filling so many of them from that day of the congress. Most of the pages are still empty, but slowly the words have been accumulating.

The rest of the conference was a blur, but no less wonderful. Other fantastic speakers and events made for a genuinely great experience, culminating in a three-hour party where my friends and I danced, laughed, and brought the truly memorable experience to a close. I was sad to see it end.

Then, later that night, we started talking about it all, the big and the small. We talked about our goals and hopes for the future. We shared things we had never told each other before. It was such a fitting way to end the congress, sharing fragments of our souls. Three hours of high-intensity fun, and then more hours still of quiet contemplation with people I cared about.

The introduction of Dr. Horton’s book ends with a bold-faced line I’d like to share. “Community, it is not about proximity or traditional labels, but about love, shared experiences and mutual respect.”