I tried throughout the years to run with different crowds, all the time trying to find myself in the process, to no avail. I searched and searched in other people. I wanted desperately to find myself somewhere other than within myself.
That place, the place that was me, was too messy to look through. It was like my bedroom in law school - full of stuff that looked important but held little to no relevance to my life at that moment. It was my confusing childhood. It was my scared adolescence. It was my hollow young adulthood. It was the poor choices. It was the empty relationships. It was the education that I had done nothing with of substance. It was the religion of my youth. It was the imbalance of an illness that I knew nothing about. It was the fear, rejection, abandonment - pulling and pushing - grabbing at anything that looked like it would make me a better person.
It was not until my 30's that I truly began to identify with that person. It was not until I began to truly look deep within myself that I began to realize that all of those things were my little girl, and they all made me the woman that I am today. A woman of peace, confidence, truth and growth.
Who is she? She is me. All of me. Child and woman.
thanks for making me feel a little less alone on my journey.
ReplyDelete"It is this backward motion, toward the source, against the stream, that most we see ourselves in."