Get Real

I can't sleep. 1AM on a Friday night...and I will freely admit, its because I am too full to relax. I ate like a BIG NASTY tonight on a "Girls Night Out". I mean, I don't even want to estimate the calories...but I'm sick. Bleh. And it's been this way for 2+ hours now...go away.

Well, as I try to digest, I'll type to get my mind off of the dizziness of my bursting stomach. I've had something on my mind tonight. I have turned over a new leaf in my life the past few months. I've decided to "GET REAL". And by that, I mean, I decided to be true to myself. I have spent much of my life trying to be someone for someone else...to make others happy. I LOVE to make others happy...especially those I love, and usually that love and happiness is reciprocated. That's called healthy relationships. That, I have not changed. I still very much live to show those I love the service and happiness they deserve for making me the happy and blessed person I am.

What I have changed is trying to make people who don't care if they are making me happy, happy. Make sense? Of course it does, because you all know what I'm talking about. We're talking about being fake, people. I mean, we all do it at one point or another. And sometimes its not intended but we concern ourselves SO much with impressing others or not wanting to offend someone, that we put our own thoughts, feelings, desires...EVERYTHING aside, to make others feel more comfortable. All the while, we are not being true to them or ourselves.

And frankly, I have had ENOUGH of it! I am me...this is who I am. I ate 20,000 calories tonight. Sometimes money is tight and we worry how we'll pay our bills. Sometimes, I go ballistic from stress or lack of sleep or for no real apparent reason at all. Sometimes I curl in a ball on the floor and cry when its that time of month. I weigh myself daily because I have issues with it. I watch MTV reality shows sometimes. I secretly dream of being a super star and sing in the mirror with my hair brush. Oh, the list goes on and on of things that aren't easily admitted. And its okay to admit it, because I am human, and I know all of you out there have your quirks too. It's okay to be real. We don't have to be THAT real all of the time, but you get the point.

And it's okay to love yourself for those things. It's okay to be proud of yourself. I've recently discovered that there are things I really like about myself. I have discovered that I think some things about my looks are really pretty. I have musical talents that I am proud of. I feel I am a good person. I am successful in my life because I try everyday. And a recent development...I am REAL.

I have discovered in trying to be me for me and the people that really love me, that I love myself more than I ever thought. I measured my own happiness and my own self worth on what other people thought of me, and therefore thought that I always had to be better. But for who? I've discovered it was not for me. It was for people that I was never, ever going to please. Because people like that are not pleased with themselves, and they want you to feel that same feeling of defeat. No more...I want to give myself credit, by myself, for myself.

I looked for validation in every possible area. Every one's opinion had to be calculated until I could decide how I "really felt". I couldn't be impressed with myself until someone else measured the worth of my achievements for me. It's a depressing way to live. I want to walk into a room and feel beautiful because I just looked at myself in a mirror and I thought I looked beautiful...not because ten heads did or didn't turn as I walked in.

It's possible to have that feeling. I am just catching the glimpse of it, and let me tell you, it is a magnificent sight to see.

I did not bring myself to this point. Those in my life who really love me, who really cared about me, forced me to this point. Short of shaking sense into me, people like my husband and my sister in particular (who are both very real people, by the way) forced me to see that I was killing myself from the inside with the craziness of trying to be something to everyone. It was a lie. You can't be something to everyone. Once you are true to yourself...once you decide that you are going to be you for you, and no one else, the evidence that we all are trapped in that same nightmare of acceptance comes out, and has a rippling effect.

"When a woman tells the truth she is creating the possibility for more truth around her." ~Adrienne Rich

If you seek out to be true to yourself, then you will find those around you who want that too. And you will weed out those who don't.

Because if you are not true to who you are, you are betraying yourself in the worst way possible. And your whole purpose for betraying yourself, to be everything for everyone else, is a catch 22 that will come back to bite you, because how can you be true to others, if you can't be true to yourself?

"If one is estranged from oneself, then one is estranged from others too. If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others." ~Anne Morrow Lindbergh

"A man who doesn't trust himself can never really trust anyone else." ~Cardinal De Retz

And if that costs you friends, relationships, etc, what is more important? The relationship built upon superficial lies, or your own self-respect and self-worth?

"I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence." ~Frederick Douglass

And there-in, in that self respect, you will find exactly what you need to be the best you. The one you were striving to be from the very beginning. And that best you, the one always trying to progress to be better and share that light, will accomplish volumes more than the persona that was once the role you played, could have ever dreamed.

"To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves--there lies the great, singular power of self-respect."~Joan Didion

I am barely breaking the surface of my new-found freedom, but I am at a point where I am comfortable with myself and as Mark Twain said, "The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself."

It is the truth. Because you are the one that will lay in bed at night worrying about what others think. You will be the one bending over backwards for people that would never think twice to do the same for you. That loneliness will eat a hole inside you that will never be filled by those acts of self destruction.

I am me. I have always been me...deep inside. Don't get me wrong...I am not a completely different person...who I was wasn't a facade or role I played completely. I was a good person then, too. The personas we play are derivatives of who we really are inside. It's when we start to cater to our own feelings and desires instead of those who are impossible to please, that we can be comfortable to admit and be who we really are and who we really want to be.

And in this discovery of my reality, I have found that I am more respected by those in my life for it. And those who do not respect it, do not need to be in my life. But like I said, I have found human nature is generally kind and accepting. It's what we don't like about ourselves that we point out in others. None of us need fingers pointed at us...we do it enough to ourselves.

This post felt more like a soap box then I've ever felt before. It's not meant to be. I don't know, maybe because its almost 2 am...and I'm getting delirious, I just made myself sound like a babbling idiot. But two things I know for certain, I am happier with who I am today than I ever have been in my life...and I'm STILL insanely full.