Inside Out

I miss someone being proud of me.  I am an enormous puddle of goo a reveler of the fist bump and atta boy.  I crave the kudo and acknowledgement needing to know I made the grade, the cut or the inner circle.  A people pleaser with zero boundaries I needed his approval your checkmark any gratuity showing interest or reward. 

Bereft of the parental bond as I shift into a new role being my mother’s caretaker and orphaned of my father I at last recognize that my shine comes from within.  I owe myself the accolades and the pat on the back.  It is my opinion that drives self-worth and it will be my self-talk I embrace each morning in the mirror instilling a swoon-worthy confidence in myself.

And delivering the best version of me a role model most certainly to my daughters for whom I stand tall on my own pulpit preaching their value telling them to own that shit.  Dazzle the world with your brilliance and simply do not give the proverbial fuck when someone just does not see what you see or who will judge you for what you are or are not.  Your voice will strengthen with every kind word and get louder with each compliment as you learn what you bring to this world and to those who matter.

My father placed monetary value on external behaviors rewarding me falsely telling me what I was worth – his terms for my achievements.  It is a new normal a new way for me to see and change how I see me.  Taking responsibility for your happiness, owning your failures and choosing your path.  You set the bar. You raise the bar.  

The Great Pretender

I want to be liked.  I feel joy when I have your full attention.  I am what my father referred to with disdain a people pleaser.  With one noticeable exception when I was living his lies in his world being his puppet dancing to his pulpit I was dutiful.  I hate conflict. I am a soother of frayed nerves a mender of hurt souls.  If you are kind I am in your pocket because quite frankly I see only the best in everyone forgiving and never challenging.  A bubble of pretense with glass floors, I was stifled and led by fear of what you might take away so I gave what I thought you wanted or needed so I could get what I so desperately craved. 

The ability to shout from the rooftops what I really think and for you to be ok and know that our relationship was not tethered to a solid yes-man deliverance.  Challenge is only fodder for conversation with depth and meaning.  I want truth and loyalty.  I need kindness. I have exchanged trivialities empty of meaning or truth or loyalty.  Take this moment to get to know the real me – what I believe in and who I root for, what makes me smile and what makes me weep what will you decide then?  Who is the girl behind the laughter?  Will you like her I wonder?

I am a chameleon. I blend.  I am that girl you may not quite recall because I live on the precipice of conformity.  I know what I like and know emphatically who I am and will never be anything other than just that but I will not defend nor raise war flags to claim my voice.  I am not on a hilltop but in the foothills a silent soldier.  I work hard.  I love fiercely. I hurt too easily. I am the great pretender.  

Catch & Release

When my dad first left there was a period of mourning – even as an adult child reconciling your parents as two separate entities we must puzzle this new piece into our world, making sense of it and figuring out where it fits.  Defining the dynamics of what is left assembling a new normal for you.  In this discovery and in my role championing my mom through proceedings I unearthed a Pandora’s awareness of the person – obliterating the role model, teacher, protector, the man that I believed I knew. But this is not his story.

Rules that have guided everything that you have done – how you have lived, choices you have made.  And suddenly someone has changed the game.  An exhilarating epiphany celebrating the release of chains that bound you ill-fitting.  A gift to explore what it is that makes you who you are giving flight to ambition and fancy.  When the picket-fence and border collie is no longer relevant and a permission slip is not required. 

Possibility a heady scent.  Birth of the woman from the ashes of the girl.  Free handing her color and shape discovering what makes her happy, what brings her joy and sorrow.  This new normal is her new truth.  Her choices and her rules.  This is my story.  

Nothing less will do

A flip board fanning the corner pages illustrating an evolution of my ever-shifting shapes and styles and colors expressing the inside me to the outside world.  The owl-like red rimmed glasses and bleached platinum hair against a pale ivory back-drop.  An unrequited love affair with the head piece – scarf, cowboy hat, baseball cap and twill page boy through my boyish stage.  Crimped blunt edged bangs, masses of unruly curls, and a red and chocolate brown phase just because.  Tees with war cries and feminist rights emblazoned across the chest.  Slumming in the local community junior team hockey jersey when Dad was head coach. 

All me.  No apologies no regrets.  And still today I find pleasure through creative expression.  My small Celtic trinity tattoo across my wrist bone and more recent dabble of dazzle on the ridge of my left nostril – my first nose piercing.  I am not out to cause a stir or initiate an article in GOOP magazine on what is appropriate for trend-setting forty-somethings.  Age has no meaning.  We are defined inside and continue to grow and develop with every experience.  Freedom of expression should be free of judgement and scorn.  My hair colour still comes from a bottle and I have multiple affairs with temporary rainbow shades.  Passionate for purple and pink hues just for fun why not.  Stuff that age-appropriate protocol in your granny panties I prefer commando.

I live to dance.  I love to laugh.  I am loud and think my sense of humor is the greatest.  I spend hundreds of words to tell a story properly – concise is not my friend.  But what does come with age and what I believe to be the most valuable lesson I have learned is to be comfortable in your own skin.  Own who you are – screw conformity.  Be confident in being you.  Live unapologetically.  This is me.  I have an amazing group of family and friends who love me and truly like me for me.  And for me – nothing less will do!