I am not you

Most of my life has been spent in the pursuit of approval. From early childhood on, I so needed the approval of my family that I would do, say, and be anything that they dictated, even to the sacrifice of my own wants, desires, dreams, thoughts, beliefs, and feelings. It has only been in the last seven to eight years that I have begun the journey of finding myself. It is a difficult process to begin recreating oneself at the age of 40, and now, at the age of 47, I find that there is still so much to create that it is a bit overwhelming at times. I found these words today that express exactly what I have thought and felt through this process.

If I do not want what you want, please try not to tell me that my want is wrong. Or if I believe other than you, at least pause before you correct my view. Or if my emotion is less than yours, or more, given the same circumstances, try not to ask me to feel more strongly or weakly. Or yet, if I act, or fail to act, in the manner of your design for action, let me be. I do not, for the moment at least, ask you to understand me. That will come only when you are willing to give up changing me into a copy of you.

I may be your spouse, your parent, your offspring, your friend, or your colleague. If you will allow me any of my own wants , or emotions, or beliefs, or actions, then you will open yourself, so that some day these ways of mine might not seem so wrong, and might finally appear to you as right--for me. To put up with me is the first step to understanding me. Not that you embrace my ways as right for you, but that you are no longer irritated or disappointed with me for my seeming waywardness. And in understanding me, you might come to prize my differences from you, and far from seeking to change me, preserve and even nurture those differences.