LOVE MONTH: DAY 10: “I’ve been fighting to be who I am all my life. What’s the point of being who I am, if I can’t love the person who was worth all the fighting for?”― Stephanie Lennox
We grow into ourselves. As we let go of the past and move into deeper expression of our authentic self, we become more capable of Acceptance, Humility, Grace and Love.
From the time we are born, we are socially programmed to please others, to be who they need for us to be in order to serve the roles they see us serving. As we begin to break free from those roles and become the individuals we are here to be, we may feel like we have to fight for our rights to BE that person. Depending on the dynamics of the family and society we are born into, we may truly have to fight for that.
I was thinking about some of the women who were a part of my early development. One of them was black, early in my childhood, and could not walk down the street to come to my home and visit me without a white escort from my family. Then there were the grandmothers I knew, one of them I did not. But I knew several who were adopted and one who was my father’s mother.
Their lives were defined by children and husbands. My father’s mother was especially impacted by her culture and her background with family. Very sad.
They did not know the things I have known in my life. I made choices that took me in directions other than parenthood and being married. Those women did not have the options I had. It was considered highly suspect if women chose not to marry and have babies. Careers were seldom an option, as was education and travel, especially alone.
I had to knock down a lot of barriers in this world, but was able to do that. Not all women are so lucky to have the option to be the rebel I determined to be at an early age.
Not all of this time did I love myself. But I was able to choose for myself the things I chose. Addiction made some of my less loving choices for me, but I see that as another social construct as well. Today I am able to love me, and I feel the fight that has been so much the road to where I am today. I am proud to be at this place and grateful for the strength I have been given during the battle and into this time. It has served me well.
But, the entire journey is the process of coming to allow, then accept; accept and then honor; honor and then maintain my sense of who I am created to be. Even when it is not the popular thing to do or be or become. I am no longer the object of that early indoctrination into what others thought I should be or how I should act or who I should become. The scars are still there, and I will never be completely free from those, but I get to be the person I fought for all those years…how cool is that?
Dolphin Hug 