identity and comparison.

“There are no norms. All people are exceptions to a rule that doesn’t exist.” 
― Fernando Pessoa

Sometimes I wish I wasn’t myself. I think we all wish this, at times. We wish we were smarter, more motivated. We wish that we were prettier, more full of grace. Stronger, happier, healthier. We wish. We dream. We sink.

We drop, farther and farther down, until we no longer know who we are anymore. We spend time trying to be someone else, trying to be anything else but the person we are afraid we are. And in this, we know what we do not want to be. We fight, frantically, to avoid what we feel is inevitable. We shrink away from our past, away from our shadows. We worry that we are not enough. That we will never be enough—or worse, that we will be too much.

We compare and contrast, we poke and we prod, we shame and we hide and we hope that we can pull it together enough to be acceptable to someone.

We spend so much time trying not to be ourselves.

We look around and say let me be this or let me be that, but please oh please, do not let me be me.

And I wonder, when it became a bad thing to simply be.

To let ourselves fall apart.

To say, I’m glad you’re this, but I’m that.

We try to force ourselves into performances and cultures and groups and is it possible to be yourself in a world that is asking you to categorize your soul?

I am ME. I don’t fit anywhere or belong to anyone or know who exactly it is I am becoming.

I am here, trying to figure it out.

I’m going to meet people who don’t like it and people who are uncomfortable and people who tell me 

I’m doing it all wrong.

I’m also going to meet people who are telling me I’m doing it all right.

But I am learning, to listen.

To listen to the small, growing voice inside of me and the big big God who tells me be still.

To stop striving.

To remember that I am I am I am enough.

I am changing.

I am growing.

And I am loved.

I do not have to be anyone.

I do not have to wish I was different.

I am messy and cranky and tired and loud and even a little bit mean sometimes.

And I am hopeful and joyful and compassionate and full of love some other times.

I am becoming.

And that is OK.

So I am learning to rest.

To stop the tug on my heart that is screaming SHAME and DISAPPOINTMENT and FEAR.

To stop trying so damn hard to fix myself.

I am learning, instead, to open my hands and my heart and whisper—you are OK.

I am OK.

I am being held.

I can let go.

I can hold on.

I can rest knowing my twenty-six year old self is exactly who she should be—

Herself.