Transitions can be tough.
Change can be grueling; it’s what our subconscious fights hardest
against. Yet every minute, every second,
we are different people. Every second we
become older and everything we do and everyone we encounter in those moments affects
who we are in some way. Casual relationships change us, show us something about
ourselves. Intimate relationships change
us more, holding up a mirror for us to see our innermost selves, often forcing
us to face things about us that we find unpleasant and that we haven’t seen or
allowed ourselves to realize before. Even watching a movie or reading a book,
feeling the emotions from the experience of what we see and hear, all makes us
be something different, something changed.
Even the act of choosing one thing over another causes us to pick a fork
in the road, a road that we keep traveling, leading us to more changes, all
based on our initial decision of which way to go.
I’m older. Maybe I’m
wiser. Most of all I’m facing who I
really am. I learned as a child to hide,
to be who someone else wanted me to be, learned that being the real me wasn’t
acceptable. And going down that road of
being someone less-than-authentic caused me to make other changes. I picked men who didn’t encourage or nurture
me. I picked friends who didn’t care if
they saw the real me or not, just wanted me to be someone who would listen to
them, agree with them, do what they wanted.
I haven’t dated or sought an intimate relationship in a very
long time. Just didn’t feel the need or
the drive or the desire. I was never
sure why but it didn’t seem like anything was missing. I have been occasionally
lonely and sometimes sad, but I never felt the need to fill that void with a
lover or partner.
Now it seems to be making sense. It’s like I’m coming out of a fog, coming
into the light, finally seeing things as they really are. Yes, I know that perception is reality,
reality is different for each of us, but my reality lately tells me that all
these years without an intimate connection has allowed me to learn who I am, to
realize that I am a good person, loveable, worthy of happiness, deserving of
happy moments. It’s also made me realize
that it’s OK and right, for me and maybe for many others, to weed out those in
my life with whom we can’t be our authentic selves, be real, be honest…..and to
nurture the relationships with those who truly care about us, listen and really
hear what we are saying to them, encourage us to be our best, love us no matter
what.
I’m certainly not sure what will happen next, how I will
change, what choices I will make. But I
do know that I am learning to value me, to appreciate the uniqueness of who I
am, love the qualities that make me special.
I truly believe that each of us is just like that, that there is no one
just like us and who we are is a gift to the world. We share the gift of who we are just by
putting one foot in front of another, going about our daily lives, being
friendly to clerks in stores, people we encounter at work, our families, and
our friends. The world and what we do in
it, every day, makes us who we are and changes us constantly. We, just by being ourselves, our unique
selves, change the world, hopefully in ways that make others happier. One of my favorite friends said recently that
we are here to live and work and survive, but our biggest and best reason to be
alive is to spread love, just by being our real selves. Pretty simple. And pretty magnificent.