I Asked for Everything, and Everything Asked for Me

I didn’t know the first thing I’d have to give up was my softness.
It happened in ways so small they slid past me — a look that told me to swallow my joy, a hand on my wrist that made my body learn stillness instead of flight, the taste of my own tongue when I bit it to keep from saying what I knew was true.
I asked for love, and the air in the room thickened. I asked for freedom, and the walls leaned so close I could taste the old paint in the back of my throat. I asked for abundance, and my palms turned upward, empty, learning that sometimes the heaviest doors close without a sound.

At twenty, I thought asking was harmless. That you could pray without payment. That God was some kind of benevolent ocean, willing to give without pulling anything back. But the tide has a memory. Every wave that delivers something to your feet is already reaching for what it will take with it when it goes.

The first trades were subtle. A night’s sleep here. A friendship that rotted from the inside. My own reflection, smudged until I couldn’t name the woman looking back. I told myself it was temporary — that I was just bending, not breaking — but there’s a smell to sacrifice you can’t mistake once you’ve breathed it in: like burnt sugar, sweet and ruined at the same time. And it lingers. It clings to the back of your throat, to your clothes, to your skin after you’ve said yes to something that looks like a blessing but walks into your life as a thief.

There were other trades I didn’t clock until much later — the way my laugh became smaller in certain rooms, the way my body braced before my spirit did. I can still feel the texture of those days: the coarse edge of fear under my fingernails, the weight of quiet pressing against my eardrums, the sour aftertaste of words I never let myself speak. And if I’m honest, there were nights I lay awake thinking, Is this the price of becoming, or am I just fucking losing myself?

No one tells you that asking for everything is an invitation to be stripped bare. That the moment you dare to claim it, the universe will lean in — close enough to smell the salt of your skin — and whisper: Good. Let’s begin.

⸻

When “everything” finally came, it didn’t knock like opportunity — it crept in like a stray animal, wet and shaking, and then refused to leave until it had eaten through everything I thought I couldn’t live without.

It didn’t come wrapped in gold or glory. It came wearing the faces of people I loved, only to ask me to choose between them and the life I said I wanted. It came as doors that opened into rooms I wasn’t ready for, then closed the moment I hesitated. It came as invitations that required me to cut my own tether, to walk away from the soft familiarity of who I’d been.

The answers to my prayers never introduced themselves as answers. They arrived disguised as moments where I had to release something to make room for what was next.
The friend who stopped calling because my truth made her uncomfortable.
The relationship that felt like home until it demanded I shrink to stay.
The version of me who loved pleasing people more than protecting myself — I had to bury her without ceremony.

There is a paradox to receiving: to gain, you must make space. To feed your future, you have to let parts of your present go hungry. And that hunger isn’t romantic — it’s the kind that keeps you up at night, pacing your kitchen with nothing in the fridge that can touch the ache in your chest. It’s the kind that makes your skin smell different — sharper, like you’ve been set on fire from the inside and the smoke has nowhere to go.

Sacrifice tastes different depending on what you’re releasing. Love leaves a metallic tang in the mouth, like biting a coin. Comfort is bittersweet, like chocolate left too long in the sun. Identity is the hardest to swallow — it’s like drinking water that’s gone warm, familiar enough to keep down, but impossible to enjoy.

By then I understood: every “yes” I’d spoken to the universe was also a gentle “no” to something else. Every open hand meant something else had to be set down. And still, even in the letting go, I could feel something gathering — a shape I couldn’t name yet, but one I knew I’d be expected to meet fully when the time came.

⸻

Hunger has a way of clarifying things. I’ve spent years letting go of people, places, and versions of myself to make room for what I’ve been asking for. Now, on the edge of forty, I want the next decade to meet me clean — inside and out.

That’s why I’ve chosen to step into a 7-day water fast. Not as punishment. Not as penance. But as an offering. A way to arrive at the threshold stripped of what doesn’t belong to the future I’ve been building. You can’t drag crumbs from an old feast into a banquet meant for the life ahead.

Seven days is a long time to sit with nothing but yourself. No food to distract you. No meals to break the day into pieces. Just water — clear, unforgiving, and honest enough to show you every hunger you’ve been carrying that has nothing to do with your stomach. I know some people will hear “seven days” and call it extreme. But there’s nothing extreme about wanting to meet the rest of your life without baggage. What’s extreme is staying full of shit you’ve outgrown and calling it living.

I’ve read that three days in, your senses sharpen, the taste in your mouth changes, and the world feels louder, brighter, closer. I expect to feel that. I want to. I want the sweetness of water to remind me that not all satisfaction comes from what you chew. I want my skin to hum from the absence of what I thought I needed. I want to notice every inch of my body calling for something deeper than calories.

This is about space-making. About quieting the noise — the advice I never asked for, the stale safety nets I’ve kept out of habit, the tired stories about who I’m “supposed” to be by now. I’m leaving them at the water’s edge.

Water is both key and gatekeeper. It will cleanse me before I enter the next era, but it will also test me — holding me at the door until I’ve proven I can step through without dragging my past in behind me.

I don’t know exactly who I’ll see in my reflection when it’s over. But I expect her to be unflinching. I expect her to look like someone who has paid in full, walked through the fire, and still has the audacity to ask for more.

⸻

Forty isn’t just an age. It’s a crown. And I didn’t inherit mine — I bled for it, bargained for it, sacrificed for it until the weight of it felt like part of my spine. Every choice, every departure, every “yes” that required a “no” has been a bead in this coronation.

I’m stepping into this decade with my hands empty on purpose. Because I’ve learned that whatever you cling to will try to own you. And I am fucking un-ownable. I am not carrying the old loves that couldn’t hold me, the opportunities that required me to disappear, the smaller versions of myself who thought survival was enough. They can’t come with me — the throne I’m building has no space for ghosts.

This year, this portal, this moment — it’s not just a birthday. It’s an arrival. The water fast is the key in the lock, the final proof that I’m willing to be emptied to be made full. Seven days of nothing but water so that when I meet myself on the other side, I know without question that I am clear enough to hold what I’ve been asking for.

And when I look in the mirror after it’s done, I want to see someone who doesn’t flinch. Someone who can meet her own gaze without apology. Someone who can stand in the middle of everything she asked for and not crumble under the weight of having it.

I understand now that “everything” was never about things. It was about becoming the kind of woman who can hold it. Who can wear the crown without bowing under it. Who can say yes without trembling.

The face staring back at me will be the face of the one who paid — in love, in comfort, in old identities, in hunger, in thirst — and still showed up to claim it all.
And when I cross that threshold, the only thing left to say will be: Let’s begin.

One love, ESS xo