A funny thing happened recently: I realized I misplaced my “edit” button. Not lost – if I need to, I know where to find it – but on this path to understand who I am and what I want, to find authenticity, I realize I have settled into a place where I cannot be any other way. I am, simply, authentic.
I have written before about my earlier life, my intense need to please, to fit in, be loved. I learned how to be sweet and compliant and likable, all at a great cost to myself. I would disappear into relationships, morph into the person other people wanted me to be…or at least who I thought they wanted me to be. I’d make myself insignificant, and change myself to fit in with a parallel version of me. Friends, that feels HORRIBLE, and it’s self perpetuating, too. And since unless we are able to understand history, we are doomed to repeat it, I got a tattoo: Veritas. It means truth, and it’s my constant reminder.
Last month was hard. Challenges on the professional as well as the personal front, plus a health scare with my daughter, a car accident, and I still have to keep up with my studies if I want to graduate this spring (I REALLY want to graduate this spring). In the past, when under stress, I’d become reactive. I would reach out to friends and share the stress, go out, bounce around, distract myself. Not a healthy reaction, but that was my M.O., to run away. This time, I retreated in on myself, told my loved ones that I was under a lot of stress, and asked for patience. I told them I was barely staying afloat and could not handle any additional decisions, even if that decision was a simple as a dinner invitation. Thank you, but my system is full, and I need to listen to it. I listened, to me.
When my boss asked my about my career plans, I was honest. I told her what I like and dislike about my job, what I need in order to stay…and that I may not choose to stay after I graduate. Yes, I understand that may not be considered the wisest career choice, being that honest with a supervisor, but look, the writing is on the wall: I am pursuing an MBA, while my colleagues have all pursued credentials in philanthropy. Pretending any other reality would be disingenuous, and that serves nobody on the long run.
And that’s the thing, right, the long run? I am doing a class on ethics at the moment, and something that struck me was the importance of having a long term view. We have choices that we make every day, of varying degrees of importance or difficulty. The litmus test is the long run: what do you see for your future? The way I make decisions now is by gut-check. Is this situation making me happy? Is it moving me in the direction I want to go? Is it adding to my life? Unless that answer is YES, then I cannot help but say no. This gets interesting when dating. Time was, I’d just really hope someone liked me (please please please let him think I am smart and pretty and funny and please please please let him ask me out again). Now, I am only concerned with whether or not I like him. If I do, hopefully he likes me back….and if not, then ouch, but okay. It’s much crueler to stay with someone that you know you do not have a future with then it is to rip the bandage off and be honest right out the gate. I actually have some wonderful male friends now who I met on dates but didn’t click with, and you know what, that’s fine. We owe it to ourselves and to each other to be authentic.
So, in the long run, what do I want? Truthfully, that evolves, and shifts; at least, the details do. I am settling into getting comfortable with that, and with myself, and with my truth.
