This is who I am.
You have to accept me for me.
You can’t change me.
Such utterances heard.
Such statements I can only wonder if each were meant to end with a question mark instead.
This is who I am?
You have to accept me for me?
You can’t change me?
Does not such simple edit change permanence to a humble beginning of truth?
We all start off good. Every drop of tint or tone, changes our make-up.
In the end, our hearts, minds, bodies, and spirits can only be viewed within our own truths between two gradients- light or dark.
We want to change the world, compelled to make it better. And yet, how are we doing and being part of the change?
How are we doing in being part of the solution, if one was even assumed presented, to what we hope for in others?
In humblest arrival, you tire of looking outward. You can only find yourself looking in.
When seeing others do what they do, there is arrival to self-reflectively ask- Why?
Even just to myself, I arrive to realize every step we’ve taken causes us to hold differing viewpoints.
Ultimately, a chicken cannot see life from an eagle’s point of view.
(Hypothetically, some eagles have placed chickens on their backs.)
The heart tells me intentions are first meant well unless only wrong is what our dignity leaves us to accept as our right.
The mind tells me we all perceive differently, leading to different understanding.
The body tells me there is mistrust from being wronged, now having built walls that only get thicker as time allows more to build up.
The spirit tells me rather than push toward oneness, experiences lead to expectations one is bound to push away.
In my earlier years, I was drawn to learn something from anyone I could. So, in trivial moments, if, for instance, waiting in line at a grocery store, I would strike conversations with whomever I could siphon some form of knowledge or wisdom from- turning any moment into a chance and opportunity for growth.
Years have passed and now, time is a virtue, becomes more real.
Time being invested in your growth and development in heart, mind, body, and spirit, care and intuition must become rather the approach.
You listen enough, you reflect enough on who you are listening to, and where (they say) they have been, to where (they say) they venture to go, you know more and more of what has already been said and done.
There are those encounters, truly, where a moment of your time was more than enough.
Eventually, you arrive to stop trying to surround yourself with others who you come to learn share nothing in common of how you view or sense the world and you thriving in it.
While in your earlier years, you needed to hear what one had to say to reflect on your position thereafter, many hereafters have come and went.
You arrive to realize not everyone is moving toward your same direction, seeing the same pathway, and at times, some are hardly moving, if not, seeing, at all.
While I am grateful to have moments where I can listen to the mindset of one who has chosen never to marry, to ever have children, or commit to finding or serving purpose, a moment is all I need to know that my invested time, any further, is simply the genuineness one blessedly gives to share a moment of peace and harmony together.
I see their viewpoint loud and clear; I just would find it unfair to expect them to see mine.
We all walk different paths.
Whether driven, pushed, or pulled toward, each path taken sets us different from another.
Collectively, no complete path of each ventured are exactly the same.
Thus, sometimes we have been given experience to understand; sometimes, the understanding can never be from actually knowing.
While I have yet to ever think to lay clean clothes out on a dining table to fold, I have embraced not being able to fold them immediately as I used to do.
These days, I embrace wrinkles until the need to iron them out. I know now that you can’t always be there to immediately get clothes out at the moment a dryer cycle stops.
Deeper to recall, who could fathom having to wash clothes by hand, wring it at best, before placing it or a few, on a hanger, above a heater, in hopes for all to dry in time for school the next day?
Our chapters evolve within our individual progression or sadly, lack of.
I’ve pushed so hard in the direction towards betterment that I actually have found myself forgetting those struggling years that served as catalysts to my forward drive.
There are chapters, if not turned back to in memory, that gets forgotten, and before you know it, judgment gets spewed out as if one never lived such a life of challenges.
Caught off guard, still stinging me to this day, even though it happened over a decade ago, I uttered disgust of a young man who stepped out of a building to walk out on a sidewalk with a clearly torn shirt above his belly and tight shorts.
I will never forget those eyes that locked in with me. He had read my thoughts and my uttered words behind a closed window, as I sat in my car, at a stop light.
His eyes told me he knew I had judged him.
To be felt worse, to what I’m hoping will be sent through to him in spirit how to this day, I am disappointed of myself, I knew I had judged him.
Above all, to place myself in a category of momentary parenting shame, I know that my two daughters heard and saw my reaction as they sat quietly in the back seats behind me.
It was my husband, driving us, whose calm words, “ You don’t know what life he’s had,” that was like a slap in the face I needed.
We have taken turns to check each other within our three decades and going of togetherness and that time, it was surely my turn.
What was wrong with my spirit at that moment?
Why did I react in such a way?
Why did I speak such brief, but heavy words of spite?
How did I lose my train of thought where my heart, mind, body, and spirit could not, instead, find time to smile instead of snarl?
Did I not recall the rumored story of the young man whom I used to see courageously walk around, dressed to his own liking, only for him to be found to the side of a road with his neck cut across?
Did I not remember to wonder if this was right at such a young age?
Did I not, then, work through years building greater convictions that if one did no harm to anyone else, no one deserves such cruelty?
The greatest discomfort to face at times are our own thoughts of hesitations and judgment of others.
The greatest discomfort at times is to lay awake thinking of such things, knowing to have wrongfully walked briefly away from light.
The greatest discomfort is to then ask for forgiveness for such carnal thoughts and actions.
The greatest discomfort is knowing that if, without love, then the other side is present.
The greatest discomfort, then, is knowing that while others look at you, with honor and admiration, moments of imperfections are recalled to the heart, mind, body, and spirit, reminding you of your silent wrong turns.
I’d like to believe I have served God best; that I am but of pure thoughts and actions.
Like a whisper into my ear, thoughts of my rather contrary to goodness behaviors return back to mind, humbling me of my vanity.
I used to stare at my children while they were sleeping, thinking, knowing, that they could never love me as much as I each love them.
Even before birth, at the onset of feeling each were in me, growing, developing, I was driven to do right- heart, mind, body, and spirit.
Greatness was coming out of me and I was yet a carrier of such wonderment each time.
The first bubble in my belly, I could sense the joy of my child, leaving me to quietly feel immense glee and silent elation for their eventual birth.
I do not recall ever fearing my stance in each delivery.
I was the chosen carrier; greatness would come out of me with all my might.
I knew that I loved each of my naturally delivered children- I didn’t need to know or see them.
I understood my part was their beginning.
Their individual paths awaiting would be that of their own.
They were perfect before I knew them.
And, then, droplets of tone and tint inevitably came and went.
While I will love them no matter what, will they arrive to a time to face who they are today will never be the same as who they were yesterday?
Who they will be tomorrow will only anticipate another turn or twist of the times to follow.
Will they be ready and willing to accept who they become?
This is who I am.
You have to accept me for me.
You can’t change me.
Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow, to the Next.
I am, but not I AM.
