While writing my post on Tuesday, I think I actually had my “AHA!” moment of the year. Rather, I set in motion the feelings for the rest of the day that led to my moment. It all started with the assertion that I am, in fact, a full-fledged adult. Now, I was very mousy from middle school onward (you can blame the whole “you picked the wrong people to sit with if you wanted to be ‘cool’ around here” issue — well, I think I picked correctly, honestly), and I had trouble feeling like I “fit in” with any particular group. By about halfway through ninth grade, I began to realize that I shouldn’t bother trying to fit in with anyone. If people were going to be my friends, they should be friends with me because they like who I am — not who they want me to be or who I’m pretending to be.
For several years, I’ve still battled with the issues of “I want people to like me” vs. “I want to be respected and like for exactly who I am.” I’ll withhold information about myself if I think a person will think less of me, for example I might not share with an elderly person that I’m listening to some incredibly loud and offensive metal. I am a product of my upbringing, and my uncle did live with us at one point — I was bound to love screaming, growling male voices set to guitars roaring and drums blasting. I might not admit to others that I’m a Catholic who actually, truly believes in God and Jesus simply because I fear being seen as “one of those people,” as if having religious faith will suddenly decrease my IQ or make my accomplishments any less. For much of the time I was completing my degree, I would conveniently fail to say I was a young wife and mother because I felt like that automatically made me look like ignorant white trash. For me to be ignorant, I shouldn’t have been capable of earning a high school diploma and gaining acceptance to the University of Florida. If I were trashy, I wouldn’t care about finishing a degree. And yet, I still worried about how others perceived me as a human being.
You can probably thank Brenda Della Casa for all her musings because she has been inspiring me to be who I am — in her words, to be authentic. She seemingly has been there, done that on nearly every issue I’ve dealt with in my life, and she has shown to be a woman of invaluable character. When I read her words, I sit back and realize that it doesn’t matter if someone doesn’t like me for who I am. If people don’t like me for who I am, then they are not the kind of people I want or need in my life. I need to surround myself with people who respect and encourage me. I think I’ve been doing a fairly decent job of that as of late. I know I still worried about how people would respond to my decision to have my baby at home with a midwife, but I realized I was falling back into the habit of needing to “fit in.” Mainstream is very overrated, and I’m glad to be my own unique individual.
