“At the end of the day we come home to ourselves.” – Lynika
So let’s be real shall we?
Let’s drop all the ‘What we should talk, dress, think, look, sound, behave, respond, write, decide, live like.” And instead — Live like there’s actually already a tenant in the building.
Someone is home paying the rent, the bills, taking care of the property and all that responsible good stuff. Somebody called YOU. And YOU is doing just fine thank you very much.
We wouldn’t want anyone traipsing into our homes and telling us what to do, not unless they were invited to do so, like a nice Feng Shui person or kind Aunt with good taste. And – – only invited if they were nice and switched on and even then we wouldn’t have to listen or take the suggestions on board at the end of the day if it didn’t feel right.
How long do we wait in our lives to break out and be ourselves?
After we move house/state/country?
After we break up, make up, get married, divorced?
After we lose weight, gain weight, work out, join a group?
After next Monday, Wednesday, Weekend, Month, New Year?
No need to wait. No magic number or date, no right state of being, no right person to be with first.
Any day we choose, any moment at any time, we can choose to begin to be ourselves.
From this point on, authentic, genuine, ‘complete with very own virtues and vices,’ self.
We spend the most time with ourselves. Our friends, our family, they may all want to spend more time with us, but more than anyone else, we get to hang out with that person. We get to be with them all the time. It may as well be someone we value, someone we like, someone we feel lucky to be around, someone we listen to, someone who does things that makes them feel gooooooood.
When we get home or wake up or have a rough time, or a good time, we want to know there’s one person who will always be there, one person who’s proud of us and in our corner cheering us on no matter what.
So let’s begin shall we? Let’s begin to be the person we are. Let ‘er rip and to heck with anyone who thinks they could possibly know how to be a more authentic version of YOU.
This includes our writing, finding our own voice and letting it have a home in the world.
Another reason I love poetry, it calls to us.
The Journey – Mary Oliver
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice–
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do–
determined to save
the only life you could save.