Authentic

I originally wrote the majority of this post in December of 2021. I was navigating a lot at the time, and doing a lot of self reflection. I was figuring out what I truly wanted out of this life – analyzing where I had been and where I intended to go. Remembering how much I was struggling then with my own identity was eye opening – I don’t feel the way I felt back then. I’m a lot more confident, a lot more certain of who I am. A lot has changed in two and a half years. It’s an interesting concept to me, how much can change in such a short period of time. I look back at these sentences I wrote, and I remember feeling this way, and I sit here and wonder how I could have lived my life so untrue to who I am as a person.

I came across this a couple of weeks ago on Facebook, shared by a popular page. My finger hovered over first the like button, and then the share button. I wasn’t sure if I should share it or not. I did end up deciding to share it to the So, This is Real Life Facebook page after some deliberation – far too much deliberation.

I was indecisive about sharing it. I had to give myself a little pep talk. Like, it’s okay that this resonates with you. It’s okay that you’re this woman.

For the longest time, I wasn’t true to myself. I didn’t dare admit that I needed my alone time. I was afraid to let people go, even if they were harmful to my mental and emotional health.

I was lowkey ashamed of the fact that I know what I want, and I’m not afraid to work hard for whatever that is.

I didn’t understand how I could crave solitude but also be afraid of being alone.

And above all else, I pretended I didn’t identify with posts like this.

Why? Because I let other people tell me that there was something wrong with my way of thinking. And I believed them.

The unfortunate facts of life are that being confidently and happily single aren’t the norm – for most of my life, this wasn’t the status quo. The fact that I am confident in my abilities and my worth and I don’t settle for less than what I want and what I deserve was looked at as strange. Confidence and drive and decisiveness were admired in a woman until certain people were faced with a woman who actually had these traits – and then they ran the other way.

So, it made me uncertain and indecisive about what I already knew about myself and about what I wanted.

I sat talking with Grandma on Christmas morning. “You won’t ever be alone. Not really,” she assured me. We were discussing my seemingly permanent single woman status, the fact that I can’t seem to hold a relationship for more than a couple of months. I know she was referring to my children, to my friends, to all of the people I care for in this life. There will always be someone I can go to dinner with, someone to call to vent to, someone to spend Friday evenings with, should I choose.

Part of me craves the closeness of a romantic relationship. But then I think of sharing my space with someone and I cringe. I don’t want to have to worry about taking too long in the shower or privacy while I practice yoga or meditate; I don’t want to have to explain why I’m in a bad mood or apologize for wanting to be left alone or even share a television with someone. But it would be nice to have someone to share my life with – sometimes.

I recently got the privilege to see Evanescence in concert, and sat in awe as they performed ‘Better off Without You’. I thought of all of the people that I have left behind – either by their choice, or my own. I thought of how I was traveling a different path, and how they would have just hindered my climb. I thought of the failed relationships and the miscommunications and the seemingly little things that came between me and the people that were no longer in my life.

I cried a little during the song – I would be a liar if I said I don’t miss those people, and look back fondly on some of those memories.

But I’d also be a liar if I said that I wish those people were still a part of my life. I am truly better off without the people that have left, better off without the people that I’ve cut ties with . . . because we were not on the same page in life. Hell, quite often, we weren’t even in the same fucking book.

I have spent this life climbing, and I fully intend to keep doing so. A lot of those people are stuck in one spot, or stuck in the past, or refuse to acknowledge their trauma – let alone try to heal from it.

I can’t live my life that way. I can’t live my life pretending to be someone that I am not.

I can’t sit here and pretend that I don’t have my own traumas that I am sorting through and figuring out – they are there. I am working on them as they come up. As I’m navigating them, I am finding ones that I didn’t even know existed – it’s exhausting at times, but I refuse to give up. I can’t sit here and pretend that they are not there, to make someone else more comfortable. I can’t sit here and just. . . not talk about it. Because the things I’ve been through are a part of me, and I shouldn’t be afraid to discuss the experiences that shaped me, the things that have hurt me. . . I shouldn’t be afraid to grow openly.

I can’t sit here and pretend that I am not opinionated, that I am not driven to be my best self. I can’t sit here and pretend that I want a quiet, mundane life when I want the exact opposite.

I can’t sit here and pretend to not be the person that I am – which is to say, someone who wants to do all the things and then be left alone to process it all. I’m not in the business of sugar coating life – shit happens, and sometimes it sucks, but there is no choice but to move forward. To process, to accept, and to move on. And be better in the aftermath.

That’s what this particular little quote meant to me – I am not afraid to leave anyone behind who wants me to be any different than who I am, anyone who is afraid of a little hard work, anyone that isn’t interested in growing in every way possible, and learning all there is to know, and exploring this absolutely magical life that we have been given.

It doesn’t mean I won’t miss them. . . it doesn’t mean I don’t wish them well.

They just don’t have a place beside me in my journey.

Photo by Jake Young on Unsplash