When I was young, it was so easy to be idealistic and stubborn & say I’d always be true to myself because God made me this way. Then bad people, or rather, people who had had bad experiences and no one to teach them or help them heal, stole my innocence and my eyes were opened and like Eve, I felt shame in my “nakedness” which was idealism, hopefulness, a tender heart, vulnerability. I then saw my Self as others must have seen me: dirt poor, unworthy of love, because if one’s own mother won’t protect her baby girl from men turned monsters, then surely one is unworthy of love.
Then, for years, my true self only occasionally surfaced, just often enough for me to know She hadn’t been killed.
Years and decades passed. With the aid of much therapy and prayer and learning to forgive, I tried again to be true to myself. My entire being is on fire with this passion to be ME and to help others who struggle with the memories of monsters, slaughtered innocence, or even just the day to day struggles with mental illness, which I inherited from the mother who didn’t protect me, now as an adult knowing that she was filled with terror and shame herself, having lived through even worse than I had; she loved me, but post traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and the violent mood swings of untreated bipolar disorder had her chained emotionally and mentally and my guess is that when she looked at her little girl, innocence ripped away, she not only blamed herself but also SAW herself and could not muster the strength to help either of us.
Today, I still struggle to be me because it interferes with a job I’ve outgrown, other than as a paycheck and health insurance, at a place where gossip replaces concern and if I so much as post on facebook or in my blog that I’m having a rough time, my work day is interrupted with questions about how I’m doing or why I’m so open.
I’m open because I’m not alone. At work, I do my job. Outside of work, I am not so passive and perhaps that frightens people, because there are times when I feel called to so much more than the menial tasks I perform daily, I feel a greater purpose and it isn’t one that can be fulfilled by being the quiet, agreeable, smiling person with whom everyone is comfortable.
Sometimes life isn’t comfortable. Sometimes I’m not happy. Sometimes I’m on a mission to not get my own story out there just to get it out there, but to tell others that THEY are not alone.
This is me. I’ll be forty years old in a few years and it’s taken me this long to accept myself instead of trying to change who I AM, who I was born to be. I am someone who will never stop learning and growing, who wants to help others, who is a closet optimist, who refuses to pretend I’m anyone but who I am.
Many people in my life seemed recently unable to deal with that fact, so to the degree that I was able, I removed them from my life.
It’s hard enough to stay true to oneself in the pressure of simply making ends meet, without being surrounded by naysayers.
365+ (ks ballou) 