I'm Much More Me

I'm sentimental and emotional by nature. I pretend to be tougher than I am to make up for that. I once did this assessment of my "emotional" work nature and basically it said I was super over sensitive, however, I was someone who would hide that I was hurt and would instead set people on fire in a rage rather than admit I was hurt.

Well that seems rather extreme. I have never "actually" set someone on fire.

What I've found though is that the more time I have ever have to spend trying to be part of a process/group/relationship the less time I'm actually able to be me. The less me I am, the less happy I am. Eventually I'm a spectator. That's when I start to fail. Work, relationships, anything. If I'm not able to just be me without being judged/criticized etc for being a flawed human I can't be a positive part of whatever it is.

I've watched bad things, wrong things happen to good people. But I wasn't me and I didn't have my voice. I had the voice that was acceptable, and it wasn't loud enough, it wasn't strong enough to truly be heard. The voice that could be heard was the one that agreed and complied.

There's this phrase someone said to me 20 years ago, "Children of alcoholics accept the unacceptable."

It's one of the truest things ever written. If you can accept that at the age of 8 you had to figure out how to use a phone book to look up the various bars your dad might be in, because you mom is bleeding and in labor, there isn't much you can't accept. And that's the problem with me. I've spent a long time accepting things that weren't right, weren't me.

Suddenly, though, I feel like me. I'm happy. I'm connecting, I'm sharing, I'm talking. I don't feel bad about who I am - I don't feel like I have to be someone ELSE in order to be liked.

I was so tired of being someone else.

Maybe I'll just be me for a while. I'm flawed. But I'm really quite awesome.