The View from One Step Behind

I often wonder whether there will ever come a time that I feel like I've caught up to the wisdom that seems to be automatically imparted to the rest of humanity. For as long as I can remember I've always felt like despite my most earnest efforts I arrive to every conclusion five minutes after everyone else. Every trend, every playground fad, every activity considered cool - I always arrived just a smidge too late and by the time I got there everyone else had moved on to something else as equally unattainable. And it wasn't for lack of trying either - there was nothing that I wanted more than to have a core group of friends I could count on. There's a reason my favourite books were the babysitters club and my favourite music came from 90s girl band "Girlfriend" - I was obsessed with having best friends. But try as I might my friendships did not stay stable like the movies or tv or books. 

As I got older I did everything I could to morph and change myself into whatever would please others. Pieces of myself were broken off me one by one, sometimes it was me doing the breaking in order to please my parents or my friends sometimes it was my parents breaking me into shards of sharp glass, each one painful to keep and painful to let go. By the time I was 20 there was very little of me left. I had been hollowed out, a shadow compared to the little girl who loved rainbows and flowers and angels and who was oblivious to all of the ways she wasn't acceptable. 

I have no doubt this happens to a lot of kids - my de-evolution is not unique by any stretch. It's taken the next 20 years of my life to grapple with all of the 100s of ways in which I shaved off pieces of myself, and really only in the last 5-10 years that I've started to search those sharp pieces out and start the painful process of soldering them back on. Self rediscovery sounds like fun, but the reality is far more uncomfortable. It takes a lot of painful realisations, a lot of self forgiveness, and a huge gut full of grief. 

And after a further 20 years what have I learnt? 

Something that hundreds of well meaning people have told me countless 1000s of times over my lifetime this far: that the more I become myself, the more I re-assume my true identity with all of its cracks and scars, the more I am accepted by the people around me. 

Turns out I'm late to the party again. I didn't need to morph or change myself at all. I only needed to be unapologetically myself.