Sometimes you just have to get beat over the head a few times with the same message until it is abundantly clear that you need to pay attention to that shit. And I have been hit lately with this message over and over:
It's time to be true to you, regardless of what anyone might think.
It started with this post by the ever-hilarious Patti of Insane in the Mom Brain. Then I read this post by Kelly Rae Roberts, then this post by Christen Olivarez, which linked to this post by Amy Estes. All these within a few days, and following a conversation with another mom friend about how after becoming moms we kind of lost ourselves for a few years. I love what Kelly Rae had to say about losing ourselves:
I don't believe we lose our voices, but rather we give them away.
And I can see how I have done that. How I have made myself small, trying to fit into this mold of the suburban housewife. How I have pondered what to wear when I go out to my husband's office, because shouldn't I look the part of the dentist's wife? This from the girl who used to wear goth boots to work every day. In small pieces, here and there, I stopped expressing myself.
I write a lot about kindness to others, but what is harder is to be kind to ourselves. Jewel wrote this beautifully in her song "What You Are":
I give love to others, but I give myself hell.
I know that when I am not fully expressing myself, it means that I am not accepting all the varied and sometimes contradictory parts of who I am. And that is an unkindness to myself.
My new pink streak, a little reminder to be true to myself. |
So I'm starting to be a little braver with my life. To be more fully who I am, and try not to worry about how others will perceive me. Because the only person I have to spend every day with for the rest of my life is me. So I'd better like that person or it's going to be a long and boring road.
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