You Only Have To Be Yourself

I was thinking of this on my bike the other day. When you're a kid, you're taking most of your cues from your family as to who the hell you are. You find out pretty damned quick, they don't know you from Adam.

Then, you start trying to figure out who you might be -- and that it might be nice to be yourself, on your own terms.

That's where I got stuck.

It was like a stick in the spokes of my bicycle wheel making a rickety-tickety noise.

Being yourself -- on your own terms.

That "your own terms" part is killer.

What if they really loved you when you were being your most unique and unusual self ON YOUR OWN TERMS. Not growing up to be the person they thought you should be, or the person they wanted you to be, or the person they approved of, or the person who "fit" in their world.

And then the truth of it occurred to me -- there are always a few people, maybe only one, when you are a kid, who actually does approve of you on your own terms. And that's all you need. You can set your compass for due north with that one solid mother lode (and often as not, it is a mother who loves you despite all the crazy things you do, but it can be your dad or an uncle or a wild great aunt or your older sister -- doesn't matter who.) You just need one person who likes you for being the weird you that you. And that one person will help you become yourself on your own terms. They'll save your life.

But as you go from 10 to 15 to 20 to 25, you still get bullied and buffeted about from pillar to post, being encouraged to fit into something, fit into somewhere, be someone else.

And just about the time you've been pushed around enough and you've really been trying to be everyone BUT you, then you suddenly realize you might try just being YOU. That in fact, it's the only person can be. So you put your foot down and make a stab at it -- being you. And the strangest part is -- it works.

In fact, nothing else ever works as well.

It's just so hard to get around to it.