On Becoming a Lioness

I've always been a thinker, far more able to live in my own head than the outside world with real people whom I often don't quite understand and whose groups I just haven't ever seemed to fit into. This last year being off work has really given me the time and luxury to further develop my awareness of self and the biggest realization that I've come to, is that I have always felt late.

Late as in, not on time. As in BEHIND. Behind others, to be specific. Who set up this timetable of expectations, anyway? The feeling of having to, the driving need to, accomplish "on schedule" is just plain soul crushing.

At first.

I felt the weight of expectation is just about every pore of my body. From my mother who unfairly equated my B's with my sibling's D's, to my teachers who told me over and over that I had "so much potential". My family just KNEW that I'd be the first to graduate college and become a RAGING SUCCESS STORY!!!!!!!! Nowhere in there was anyone asking what I would like to do, what I thought, what I wanted to accomplish, what my future meant to me. I was saddled and ready to go... with no real tools of my own prepared for the ride.

And so I failed. Well, I felt that I failed. I failed before I could fail so that I didn't end up wasting their time with how badly I was going to disappoint them when the hype turned to dust in front of their eyes. I still have a problem with self-sabotaging but it's getting better.

As I grew up into my late teens and early twenties, I felt like not only had I seriously let all of my cheerleaders down, but that I wasn't equal to my peers. A few had bought homes, had babies, gotten married, moved out of town for longer than six months... and I didn't even have a CAREER yet. Now, it is good to compare yourself with others sometimes. It can be a good source of motivation or affirmation for the way your own life is going, but when you start tearing yourself down... that's when you're doing it wrong.

I did not learn that until a few short years ago. I am 32.

It took me so long to understand that i was not BEHIND. I was not LATE. Do you know why? Because who the hell designed the damn timeline, and there is never a "late" for the brave! There is no keeper of the schedule but you. If you are brave, time is rarely a factor or a limiting agent.

What prompted my amazing realization? My best friend and youngest sister, Samantha. Her little family, farm, and day to day life does not fit a mold, and it's okay. I have always felt that it is okay and defended her hippie ways and then one day, out of nowhere, realized that although I took it as a matter of course that her path was different and okay, I didn't give my own that same respect.

I didn't have to graduate from college. I didn't have to be married before having my daughter. I didn't have to own a house by the time I was 25. I didn't have to be married to the man I lived with. I didn't have to have a fancy career title that my husband, relatives, or friends could boast about when speaking of me. I didn't have to have all of that and a big, new home in order to be a spectacular wife, mother, daughter, sister, or friend.

I didn't have to, because my life is my own. I am where I need to be, I always have been, and that is okay because I said it is.

I wish the burden of other people's expectations, or your own inflated and disproportionate expectations on yourself, to fall from your shoulders too.

It feels good to breathe.

I am a strong person. I am a good person. These, in the eyes of my daughter, husband, family and friends, is what matters to me. Not what I have, what title I hold, or where I am.

It feels good to become a lioness.