Delivering Love

How can a year feel so long and yet so short all at the same time? I truly wish I was writing this with a clear epiphany, a path for the future ready to be forged with excitement and courage. Instead I feel trepidicious and unsure of what 2023 may hold. Many years have passed since I last bounced hopefully into a fresh year, sometimes I wonder if I ever did or if these are the lies we tell ourselves in order to avoid the shakespearean challenge that titles this blog. As age catches me unawares and I am forced to face the reality that my destiny is held in my own hands I have to wonder, is the real issue being true to myself or something else entirely?

To even contemplate being true to self surely we must first know who and what that self is ? Subsequently I feel that perhaps the bigger issue is not being true to self but more knowing what constitutes self in the first place. I realise that at 49 years and 262 days old I suddenly find myself not simply wanting to know my true self, rather feeling that I may drown in emptiness if I do not. Some may declare such wonderings as a mid-life crisis but I wonder do we mock those ‘finding themselves’ because the reality is much too close to home? Surely as we traverse the waves of life it is reasonable to assume that not everyone will emerge unchanged? I applaud those who benefit from a calm and un-searching soul, contentment is to be envied, but it cannot be held as a stick to beat others who find themselves with a longing. Nor can platitudes lamenting about the colours of grass on any given side be presumed to be enough to chase someone into a state of blissful happiness. Mistakes are made when people feel trapped and isolated. Change comes when we feel free to find who we truly are and who we want to be. Disaster beacons when we are forced to remain in a prison of presumption and a forced acceptance of an existence palatable to all but the owner.

Case in point, I am literally in a constant battle in my own head over whether I have a right to my own thoughts. Put like this and written in black and white I cannot quite fathom that these words come from me , let alone are a true reflection of my feelings. Yet they are true and they are accurate. The struggle however to own them remains real , worth reflecting on and definitely worth a change.

I have at various times in my life and for various reasons been asked this question. “What would you like to do just for you”. Each time I have been utterly helpless to know the answer . I would still struggle to answer this and it has led me to reflect on whether or not I actually know myself at all. And if not, why not ?

I think several factors contribute to my lack of self understanding. I’m a 70’s child, that makes me old enough to have been raised in a world where people settled for their lot in life, particularly women. The glass ceiling was more of a kitchen sink high wall and success often measured in your ability to find a husband and create a family. If you could squeeze in a respectable career, fair play to you. Aspirations were things for men and wealthy people. I also spent most of my childhood and younger adult life attached to one church or another where the afore mentioned goals were not just hoped for they were actively desired and seen as a pinnacle of success. Marriage, children a decent job, some education if you dared and a nice life in the burbs washing your car after church on a Sunday. Alanis Morrisette eat your heart out. I did it all . I tried very hard to meet the expectations set and if I am being truthful failed often and with aplomb. As dear old Alanis said, all I wanted to do was have some fun. Fun it seems is not for the pure of heart or of Godly ,wifely ,motherly inclination’s.

It is a lot of work to always be trying to fit in. It is even more work to ask yourself why you don’t. It is impossible to accept that who you are is worth the same as everyone else when the world you inhabit consistently infers that nothing but generous conforming will do. Free spirits and free thinkers are for the pages of books, magazines and not for polite families and good girls.

Turns out, though, that every thought, every question, every wondering, that is suppressed simply lies dormant , patiently biding its time. Waiting for a moment when being entirely yourself matters more than any other opinion or thing in your life, then it explodes. All of it. A cacophony of self so real and so raw it is quite impossible to resist it in any way. All the why’s pale into insignificance and for a person who likes to keep her soul neatly bottled I have been helpless in the face of the inner onslaught.

Perhaps the greatest surprise of all is that I have been utterly unwilling to ignore it. More than a cat that can’t go back into the bag, it is a release that while isolating and unnerving is at the same time liberating and, dare I say it, exciting.

As I reflect on all of this I have also come to realise that so little of my life to date has been moulded entirely by my own heart. Indeed it is no crime to consider others in our life decisions and actions but to never have the courage to make a choice or decision entirely based on what you feel in your soul is both heartbreaking and wasteful. The former because nobody has a right to assume they can make or influence the choices of another , the waste of creativity and influence that must abound for this reason alone. The latter tag teaming with my previous statement. For someone who was taught how individual she was , how unique a creation she was, how much she was created in God’s image, how important it was for her to consider her self ‘a temple’ to her creator, it seems more than a little contradictory that any time I tried to be that ‘unique self’ I was crushed . We cannot be both unique creations and robotic stereotypes. If I am created in God’s image then how can who I am ever be wrong?

Control. That’s what it all comes down to. It has taken me to almost 50 to realise that people control or try to control anything that could force them to think beyond their realm of comfort and understanding. It’s not me that is wrong. It was my willingness to buy into a lie that being like everyone else was the route to contentment and happiness. The only route to happiness is in the constant pursuit of authenticity of self. We can feel all our feelings, we can be entirely ourselves and still be kind, considerate and valuable members of society. The real challenge is to be all of this and find a way not to allow the judgement of others to change our pilgrimage for genuine honesty of heart mind and soul. I cannot help but imagine what sorrows and pain may have been avoided if I could have learned this sooner.

There is more to come , more to peruse and more to explore. Writing always surprises me , it’s like somehow tapping on a keyboard unlocks the recesses of my mind in ways nothing else can. My words often surprise me. Like opening a book and reading a chapter of my life I didn’t even know existed. As to mine own self? There is a way to go and many discoveries to be made before I can say I understand her. I suspect there are further explosions to come from long suppressed thoughts and feelings and I have no idea where they will lead. I do know that I long to be true to me. I believe that my happiness lies entirely in my own hands. I also believe that these thoughts are not selfish, I believe that if, and it is a big if, I can be true to myself, whatever that self is, then I will truly be honouring the life given to me.