I had a tumultuous, sometimes scary, sometimes happy, but often very sad childhood.
Things happened that broke myself and the people around me so devastatingly, that normal wasn’t possible. Barely getting by was a frequent state in our family. It was the only thing I knew, though, and it framed who I became in my own mind.
During the hard times and the darkest of my memories, and as a result of the things that happened, and things that were said, I formed horrible, heart-breaking beliefs about who and how I was. They were as true and real to me as if they were etched into my skin for all to see. Their actual invisibility couldn’t shield my soul from being marred and changed or protect me from their permanent impact on how I see myself. I wore those labels and beliefs like a heavy weight for most of my years. I was never, in my understanding, free to become someone without those labels, to leave them behind. I was them and they were me.
To keep people far enough away from me that they couldn’t see all that was etched on me, and especially so they couldn’t add more, I carried a shield of anger with me always. I used it often. Few made it behind the shield. It’s hard to be loved when everyone is held at bay. And the more I felt unloved, the more I believed the labels were true: I was unlovable.
But the labels were lies. Lies I believed about myself! Some of them so painful to hear and believe that, even still, I cannot bring myself to write them here.
Over the last few years I’ve been working on sanding down the surfaces to blend those hard-etched words in…chiseling them away one painful memory at a time. Replacing them with truths. It’s hard, hard work. Taking out one painful scene and experience at a time to examine with my now-grown eyes and heart and finding the truth in it. It’s not always a voluntary process; painful memories and realizations spring out at me and catch me unaware and unprepared often lately.
Most often I see that those words are not me. I am not them.
I am a good person.
Kind. Loving. Honest. Caring. Generous. Hard working. Smart. Creative. Fun!
(Some days I even believe that!)
I would have liked to have gotten to this point sooner, but I’ve never been the person I am today before…
And I suppose, I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.
I thank God that I can walk lighter now and have hope that some day soon the only labels etched in me will have been put there carefully and lovingly and that I will see myself as I truly am…
…a Messy, Beautiful Warrior!
This essay and I are part of the Messy, Beautiful Warrior Project — To learn more and join us, CLICK HERE! And to learn about the New York Times Bestselling Memoir Carry On Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life, just released in paperback, CLICK HERE!
