Skip to main content

Being true to yourself above all else...

I haven't always been good about being true to who I am. I am not a "pleaser" per se, but I hate to be the bad guy and I don't like to be wrong. Sometimes, though, being true to who you are and what you believe means that others aren't going to agree. We're not a land of lemmings even though in some instances it seems as though people do just follow the status quo and make due with what they've been fed. Good or bad...it's all about your perspective from the seat you're sitting in at the moment.

Do you have that mask you wear? The one that makes you acceptable to those around you. The one that shows you as what you think others want you to be...happy, successful, together...whatever you want them to see. All the while it's really lip service that you are paying to them and to yourself. There's "fake it till you make it" and there's fake it because you're trying to survive and don't know where the life preserver is to help you keep your head above water.

I wear the strong woman mask. Sometimes, the line between where the reality of who I am and who I pretend to be intersects. I know I am a strong woman and can accomplish anything I set out to achieve, but in other ways I am just as broken and damaged as anyone else and maybe more than some! My best friend wrote this in our shared journal: "I worry about you...--yes, you Xena the Warrior Princess--who I happen to think is much more fragile than even she thinks sometimes..." She is not the only one who saw my mask. There is another who called me out on that as well. I guess that is what happens when you find someone who really sees you for who you are and loves you anyway.

To those who really know me, my masks are invisible. They have seen me through those things or heard my life story about those places that broke me and damaged me and left me changed forever. Change is not always bad, though. Change has allowed me to wake up from the fog I was living in and live a real and full life. I have found my happy place and it is in the moment that is right now. I see the blessings around me. I embrace all that I am and all that I have to offer. I know my worth and that I am enough. I still believe...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Struggles

Struggles. We all have them. My (latest) favorite saying is, "We all have our things." And for me, my "thing" is wanting to eat to fill the emptiness inside. And not like carrots and apples and good for you stuff. Oh, No! The really bad for you stuff. I crave sugary treats. I have been doing so well with my eating lately and have been exercising for the last few weeks as well, but last night nearly took me down. I was struggling with wanting to run--not walk--into the kitchen and make myself a bowl of cereal with some Craisins or a fruit smoothie or a PB&J. I prayed instead. Almost to the point of tears, I begged God for this to pass. I ate some carrots. I drank some more water. I contemplated some tea. I got out my swiss ball and did some wall squats as I watched TV. I had already been out for a walk earlier with ML, too, but I felt like I was coming out of my skin. OBSESSING about eating something. It wasn't food that I wanted, though. I wanted to feed t
6 comments
Read more

Join the Navy, See the World!

There are things we want in life and make happen, but they don't always happen as we'd planned or imagined. My dad had gone to Ohio University in Athens, OH on a wrestling scholarship. I, too, wanted to go to OU, but since he'd dropped out and it had a reputation as a huge party school, it was going to be a tough sell. So, I did my homework and sell I did. At the time (1990), OU was one of the top 10 colleges for Communications in the U.S. That was the degree I wanted and I wanted to go to OU to get my degree. I graduated early and during the time between my acceptance to OU and the College of Communications and pre-college, I had become further enamored with marine life and sharks specifically and wanted to change my major to Marine Biology which at OU was actually a Zoology degree. The girl tried to talk me out of changing my major because it was so hard to get into the College of Communication and if I left, I would have to reapply and hope for the best in my junior year
Post a Comment
Read more

Sometimes, Reality is Worse

What if I told you that Joseph/SAM was created to hurt me? Made up to be everything I'd ever want and more? What if I told you everything I believed and knew him to be was an enormous hoax? All because someone wanted to give me what she felt I had given her. All that she felt I had taken from her. I have to admit that while people have hurt me before with their actions and decisions it has been for their own personal and selfish reasons. Usually not with malicious intent.  There has to be a lot of pain and hurt within a person to invest so much into the creation of a fictional character. Someone who would really take the time to know me. Someone who would enlist others to make the ruse real. To call me on the phone, to send me cards from the web, to pick out a card and leave it at a bar where the bartender who gave it to me told me how cute my guy was, to create a Facebook account with pictures and friends, to bring an ex-wife into the mix, pictures from the desert and your trave
10 comments
Read more