Finding Myself

4:41am Friday 5May06
I can remember that at ten years old I genuinely liked myself as I was.
I knew that I was a caring person. I liked that I could stick up for
myself and I knew that I had every right to be upset when I was put
second or third. It was the beginning of my dismissive years for sure.

I liked that I could out run most of the boys and I knew that I was
good enough to have the boy that I liked like me in return. And he did
too. His name was Dennis and he was Greek. When all of us neighbourhood
kids played hide and seek, Dennis and I always chose places to hide
together. If I said that I couldn't find my way in the dark, Dennis
would always say, "my hand is out, reach for my hand." I would touch
his hand and we would hide pressed close together. It was the closest
thing a boy and a girl would get to any kind of intimacy at 10 years
old. Dennis was sweet and comforting and reassurring.

At 10 years old, I was sure of myself and my abilities. I loved to draw
cartoons but my brother was such a superior artist that I decided to
make drawing my secondary talent. I decided that I would be a writer
instead and I started to write. Back then I wasn't overly critical of
my writing. I somehow instinctively knew that with time and practice my
writing ability would improve. Writing was a game of finding the right
words like rolling doubles while playing monopoly. Writing occupied my
mind and if I wasn't that quick with mathematics when quizzed in class
at least I knew deep inside me that I had something that I was quick
and smart at even if nobody else knew. I knew that I had my own special
something within me.

I feel myself slowly moving through the tail end of my latest
transition. I'm getting through and out of the repressed anger of the
emotional hardships of the last few years - jobs that I hated but had
no choice but to stay at for survival purposes, mistreatment of people
that didn't turn out to be friends, the death of my mother and feeling
like my whole sense of family died with her.

I'm feeling inspired. I'm focusing less on annoying incompetent people
and more on my individual path, who is going to travel with me, who
I'll have no sadness in leaving behind. I'm starting to genuinely like
myself like that ten year old - good parts and not so good. I feel less
of that need to be perfect and then beat myself down because I'm not.
I feel less of a need to control the outcome of every situation and yet
understand that I will have times when I backslide. That's human
nature.

I want to be more of that person who is passionate about things like
writing and music, enjoying nature and laughing at my favorite donkey
buddy. I'm finding more inspiration and am coming up to the ability to
see something loving in people that I don't particularly care for.

I had a conversation with Cinnabon on Sunday that what I love about
doing body work (she is a massage therapist and I do Reiki) is that
whoever gets on my massage table and allows me to put my hands on them
I fall in love with. It's something about how all the daily masks and
walls fall away when a person is on the table with their eyes closed
and I can almost see what that person looked like as a child. I can
feel the sensitivity and need for approval that every human being had
at one time before they found the need to disguise their truth.

What a great gift to be able to see in to someone's soul. To cut
through the disguises and find that under all the layers that we're all
the same. To find some sort of connection to humanity. It makes life a
little less solitary.

I don't know how I'm going to fit it in but I'm going to start offering
my Reiki services again. Whether it's for free or I offer my services
at a community centre or for fundraisers. That ten year old who I liked
being had pursuits that she enjoyed. She got some of this living thing
right. To start, Cinnabon and I are going to swap services with each
other. Reiki for swedish massage.

Living an inspired life.
EY