Like most folk, for most of my life I accepted the judgment of “the world” regarding certain of my character traits—ranging from introversion and shyness to my particular attractions and interests—and strove to change them. When I didn’t conform to the norms of the culture I grew up in, I received the message loud and clear—“There’s something wrong with you; you don’t belong”—and I took that message to heart; I accepted it as the truth.
And I hungered for belonging… My craving for belonging drove my drinking, my drug use, my materialism, and the many masks I wore in an attempt to hide my strangeness and fit in. Yet nothing I did gave me satisfaction; when I was a part of the “in” crowd, I knew I was a fake and I feared getting caught pretending. I ingested enormous pain with the constant thought that the “real me” was a misfit, belonging nowhere, and with the pressure of maintaining the facade that I believed was the only answer to loneliness.
Eventually I tired of trying to maintain the artifice; it was too much work keeping up appearances, and all my efforts to change those character traits amounted to nothing more than abiding frustration. I still believed society’s judgments and therefore considered myself broken; I resigned myself to the rubbish heap where the broken repose. I wasn’t happy, but I made peace with things as I thought them to be.
But that was then.
Now is another story, a better story. Now, I know that “the world” has got it wrong. Now, I know that I’m perfect just as I am; that I don’t need fixing, that forcing myself to conform is denial of the awesomeness that is me, that I am worthy and lovable and loved just as I am by those who belong in my life (and to whom I belong).
I’m done trying to “overcome” introversion and shyness, I’m done apologizing for who I like and what attracts me! I’m done regretting my age and past follies and the things I cannot (and need not) change. I am what I am, and what I am is glorious, as are those who embrace me as I am and appreciate my quirks and idiosyncrasies (those who don’t—who can’t—are glorious, too, but I don’t owe them any more than anyone owes me).
All that I long for is mine already, and the timing is perfect. I’m not—I’ll never be—“too old” or “too shy” or “too weird”; I’m me, and that’s amazing.
And best of all, the same is true of you.
Be awesome, my friends…be awesome.
