After being so silent, now I find the words flowing. Like the crack in the dam that begins as a trickle and then becomes a flood, my thoughts are being let loose. It feels good. It feels very good.
So, having assessed my previous perceptions on life as inaccurate, now I must examine things again, from a new,clearer viewpoint.
Free of the influence of past feelings, wrongly generated by incorrect perceptions, my choices are now immense. I can choose my life to be anything I want it to be. I no longer feel obliged to be the people-pleaser, needing, wanting acceptance.
So then, what DO I want?
For the first time in my life, I want to live life on my terms, without seeking or needing permission, and without justifying my choices. I shall make my choices simply because they feel right for me.
I recognise and accept that others shall still judge me. Others shall still disapprove and shake their heads. Some will still shun me because of my choices. And you know, this is okay. They are allowed their thoughts and opinions as much as I am. But their thoughts. opinions and actions, shall no longer dictate my choices or my responses. Nor shall their thoughts, opinions or actions pierce me to the heart as they used to do. I refuse to be disheartened because of being judged, scorned, shunned or put aside. I am not responsible for how others react to me. I am only responsible for my own actions.
I have never been good at changing to please others. I still fail to please and I die a little inside every time I try it. In the end I always burst out and be myself again. So, now I am just going to be me.
Not only that though, I am going to take pleasure and pride in being me. I am going to gloriously own my successes and my failures, embrace my strengths and my flaws. For truly, if I did not make mistakes, how could I ever learn and grow? And if I did not recognise and applaud my strengths, how could I ever find the will to go on, to believe in myself?
I have always trusted my inner intuition/instincts/perceptions. Only now I recognise that they are not always right. 'I' am not always right. But that's okay too. I don't have to be always right. It's okay to make a mistake, a few, several, many! And you know, I'm not always wrong, either. Sometimes I make some gloriously right choices, too.
The thing is, the more I have thought of this, of living this way, the more I have been at peace. It is when the external life I am living is in conflict with my inner beliefs that I lose this peace. How can there be peace when there is conflict? So now, like a child learning to walk for the first time, I must learn how to shed old habits, old conditioning, and instead tune in to me, to my inner voice, to my inner being, find myself, accept myself and allow that peace to expand and grow.
So, first steps...
In the past when a relationship has broken I find I often seek to go back to being the me I was before it began. This was understandable as always in my relationships I've shed parts of me. They've been chipped away, undermined, cast aside. So inevitably I seek to find them again.
This time though, it has not been so easy. I realise now that my relationship with Seth spanned a crucial time in my life. When it ended, I was wrong to seek to go back to me, because I am no longer that person. No wonder I have struggled and not succeeded in my efforts.
I am older now. Much older. Before I met Seth I was in a relationship for six years, and was with him for about five years and have been single for two years since we divorced. At 53, I am a long way from the woman I was at 40 when I was last single.
I am no longer the slightly bohemian university student that I was back then. I was gloriously single, rode a motorbike, had piercings and tattoos, outlandish hair and lived a riotous dating life. What's more, I do not want to be. That lifestyle was good and fun back then, but it's not what I want now. The bike is gone as are some of the piercings, my hair is not nearly so outrageous and I have not dated since my divorce. I feel I have gotten more in touch with my roots, my country beginning, my down to earth self. I feel very comfortable with myself now. I know what 'I' like, and I'm really not prepared to compromise on it any more. People either like me how I am, or they move on. 'I' like me how I am.
In saying I want to live life on my terms now, I do not want this to appear to be, or be, inflexible. I am constantly learning and growing, so I know my terms will grow with me. But in the end, anyone in my life from now on must accept that I am who I am, warts and all, and I shall not change or conform to please them. If they are right to be in my life, either as friend or lover, then I should please them just by being me.
Having begun to feel that inner peace, it is addictive, alluring. I do not want to surrender it.
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