Accomodating Your Truth Away

In effect, the cost of being who you are is that you can't possibly meet everyone's expectations, and so, there will inevitably, be external conflict to deal with- the friction of being visible. Still, the cost of not being who you are is that while you are busy pleasing everyone around you, a precious part of you is dying inside; in this case there will be internal conflict to deal with - the friction of being invisible.

-The Book of Awakenings (Mark Nepo)

When I turned 30, I had a meltdown. I don't blame the age particularly but it is a turning point in one's life where big questions rear their ugly, menacing heads. "Why haven't you settled down yet?" they taunt. "When are you going to get a real job?" they sneer. "At the rate you are going, you will never have kids!" they say, laughing in my face. I let all the expectations anyone ever had of me- and by that I mean, all the expectations I thought everyone had of me- including the mountain of impossible ones I had for myself, overwhelm me to the point of a nervous breakdown.

It wasn't a pretty time. I was locked away internally. A horrible, lonely prison of my own making. I had to face the fact that I didn't know how to ask for help or how to allow people to support me and really know me, particularly in my vulnerability. I holed up in my small cottage whenever I wasn't at work. The smallest interactions depleted me. I hardly made any plans at all because my moods were so fickle, I couldn't guarantee from one minute to the next if I would be up for socializing. People who had relied on me to be upbeat and the life of the party didn't know what to do with me. They stopped calling. Dear friends who knew my melancholy streak worried and never ceased in showing up in any way they could to show they loved me no matter what. Sometimes, they would come to the door and I would pretend I wasn't home. I couldn't face them, my face streaked with unexplainable tears. They would ask what was wrong and I had no answer except: Everything. I cried endlessly. The deep well of sorrow I had kept buried for so long had erupted like a geyser. All the hurts, the loss, the grief of not being enough, especially to myself, soaked me to my core until I was spent, withered, crumpled on the floor like a used tissue.

It took baby steps to shed the depression. Therapy helped. Believing in the love of my friends and family helped. Letting go of "friendships" that were superficial, surface, draining did wonders. Forgiving myself for how badly I had treated myself was huge. I made a vow to never accomodate my personal truth away ever again. In the months that followed, I slowly emerged- a softer version of the angry, hard, sad girl I once was. That troubled time was my chrysalis.

Now, almost 3 years later, I feel invigorated. Each day is a new opportunity to be unapologetically alive. To be authentic in who I am. There is no good verses bad. It's all me without qualifiers. Me, loving me, in all my complexity. It is always worth the risk, the discomfort, the struggle against the fear. Always.