IMPERFECT Lady

I love you today.

Today is also our 35th Wedding Anniversary.  

 

I don't even know where to begin or how to encapsulate our 35 years.

The girl I was when we met is so far from who I am today, and yet my husband loved both of them.

 

Marriage has changed for me in these past many years.

Or how I see marriage differently.

 

I think I thought in the early years that marriage came before us.

That in order to have a good marriage, you focused on that.

 

What I have come to learn is that the marriage is only as good as the individuals who are in it.

And, it has to have two willing partners.

 

Also marriage can either be a prison or open space without limits - the couple decides this or maybe more true, how you feel about yourself matters the most.

If you are secure in who you are and allow each other to be themselves, there is boundless freedom to be.

 

About 17 years ago when my world fell apart, our marriage lay on the floor.  I couldn't attend to it - and me.

And, I didn't know who I was going to be when all the dust cleared - or who I would love.

So, we began saying "I love you today", it seemed most honest.  Our marriage or our lives became present. We didn't worry about the future - just now.  And in doing so, we focused on our individual truths and the marriage followed.

I am not sure I am articulating the fluidness of our space together and the comfort it brings to not have to measure up or keep the same.  The space and organic flow allows for changes and truth. 

 

All the old standards of marriage and its religious constraints no longer exist.

What is in its place are two people who love life, being themselves and with each other. 

35 years later and I love us more.

I love our love.

I love and know who I am - which makes it easier to love.

 

What I love about my husband is he allowed me to breakdown and fall apart and rebuild myself in ways that were strikingly different than who I was before.  He made room for the new me and even more importantly allowed the old me to die.

I am quite certain that our marriage would have failed - if there were constraints put upon me.

If he needed me to be the old me - the marriage would have died - and his love would have been conditional.

Unconditional means - No Conditions.

 

The best marriages allow you to be yourself and to change when change is required.

And, we had also gave each other permission to walk away. IF and When we felt we didn't love each other. It would not mean that either of us was wrong or bad - but that our love changed.  What we wanted most is for each of us to be free, to love, or not love, and to go or to stay. 

 

35 years and counting...I love you today.

 

Happy Badass Women's Day

Mother's Day could be women's day - a day where we celebrate the women in our lives that have enriched us, accepted us, honored us, empowered us, loved us, and encouraged us to be more of who we were born to be.  

A day to look back at all the wonderful kind loving women who have stepped in and gave us what we didn't get from our own mothers.  

I have had women who have shown me examples of what a loving means.

Women who displayed boundaries.

Women embraced truths

Women who loved themselves deeply.

Ladies who lived colorful expressive artful lives.

Badass women whose lives are filled with adventures.

These ladies each carry a snippet of Mom for me.

 

The ones who I could share my life trials with and who understood it wasn't the end and offered words of value in hopeless seeming situations.

Those who accepted the transformation of Me - not only accepted; but cheered me on.

And many who have re-introduced me to the outdoors.

 

I am so grateful to so many badass wise women who today - I celebrate.

I love that I have mom energy from so many different women.

I feel I am in a family of female energy that is changing legacies and defining new patterns and leaving in their wake, hope.

And love.

And self acceptance, awareness and confidence in being you.

 

It has taken women from many walks of life and ages to restore me - to shine me up and dust off the brokenness.

I feel a heartwarming melt for you all.

Mother's Day for me will be Women's Day.

Women who live their lives being true to who they are, who are wise and adventurous.  Whose lives may have sucked a time or two - who have found themselves on their knees in grief - but rose to live a life worth celebrating - those who have redefined themselves to fit into their new normal. I honor you today.

I love your examples of living life - regardless of the struggles you have had to overcome - you continue to shine forth and love, live, laugh and find joy.  

Life isn't easy and the older we get the more we realize all the hurtful sorrows do fade or they are surrounded by little moments of good life.  

Happy Women's Day - or maybe Happy Badass Women's Day!

 

 

 

You Will Always Belong

I am reading about Belonging in Brene Brown's Book "Atlas of the Heart - Mapping Meaningful Connections."

"We have to belong to ourselves as much as we need to belong to others. Any belonging that asks us to betray ourselves is not true belonging."

"True belonging is the spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in both being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness. True belonging doesn't require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are."

"We can never truly belong if we are betraying ourselves, our ideals or our values in the process. That is why it's a mistake to think that belong is passive and simply about joining or "going along" with others. It is not. Belonging is a practice that requires us to be vulnerable, get uncomfortable, and learn how to be present with people without sacrificing who we are. When we sacrifice who we are, we not only feel separate from others, but we even feel disconnected from ourselves."

"Because we can feel belonging only if we have the courage to share our most authentic selves with people, our sense of belonging can never be greater that our level of self-acceptance."

 

What I love most about Belonging, is that you can only belong if you are authentic. 

And the level in which you feel deep belonging is as deep as your own self-acceptance.

 

In her book she writes about the difference between "Belonging and Fitting in"

"Belonging is being accepted for you - Fitting in is being accepted for being like everyone else.

If I get to be me, I belong. If I have to be like you, I fit in.

Belonging is being somewhere you want to be, and they want you. Fitting in is being somewhere where you want to be, but they don't care one way or the other.

Not belonging at school is really hard. But it is nothing compared to what it feels like when you don't belong at home. "

 

I even looked up Self- acceptance to see if I understood that correctly.

"Self-acceptance is defined as “an individual's acceptance of all of their attributes, positive or negative"

 

When I look back at my life and where I am today, I can see how I didn't belong but fit in.

And, there were certain understandings that we all accepted in order to fit in.

 

The longing to belong was the thirst of my childhood.

When perhaps it was me seeking to accept me wholly.

To even know me completely.

 

What is sad to me, is that there are so many of us out there that don't belong.

Because we will not leave ourselves behind in order to do so.

 

When you feel that your whole self is not embraced and accepted - then we tend to back away.

 

The cult-like religions like the FALC - often want you to fit in - and when you don't you feel the shunning.

I had to look up shunning.

"Persistently avoid, ignore, or reject (someone or something) through antipathy or caution."

 

They tend to avoid and ignore those who don't fit in.

 

I don't recall feeling the deep set feelings of belonging.

I myself had very little self-acceptance. I had church acceptance IF I followed their rules.

 

What I know now is any group that doesn't allow you to be you, is not one that sees you.

Even in families - or perhaps especially in families.

She writes about her children and how she wants them to feel.

"As a parent, my goal is to help my children believe in, and belong to themselves, and to know that, no matter what, they always belong at home. That we see them and love them for who they are. The pressure to fit in is real and unrelenting, but if we can create a sense of inextricable connection, it's a fierce protector as they navigate belonging. Be here.Be you. Belong.

 

I will make a quilt with this last three lines. This is my mantra.

That is the space I want to hold for everyone.

As long as you are real, authentic and being you - you will always belong.