Remember who YOU are, always
My 10 year old (and all through my childhood and adolescence) self was precocious, confident, well-liked, self-assured, a little vain, always fashionable in a way that reflected what I loved and who I was in the moment.
What you can’t see in this photo thanks to the framing portions are the 80s style fluffy white socks, black patent leather tap shoes and pink plastic barrette I am also wearing with my mom’s shirt and wherever I found that belt!
The actual advice I got from my mom around this age that has stayed with me through my adulthood was:
“I work for myself because I could never follow anyone else’s rules.”
She told me that she raised me to have high self esteem not only because as an adoptee, she knew that could be a concern, but because she has low self esteem and wanted me to be different.
Being different, unique and my own person has been a part of how I see the world from very early on. But when I left home, the Midwestern ground and solidness, and especially the protection of my family, I did lose myself in my early wounding being attracted to people who seemed like authentic, unique, confident rebels and rule-breakers themselves, but seeing them that way from a place of trauma, fear of abandonment and rejection if I were to be my true self, so I hid this little girl for a long time.
Now that I have healed from those wounds and am no longer living in longing and hunger, I have so much compassion for those earlier versions of myself existing in such extremes: protection and self-confidence when safe but isolated, unprotected and yearning when unsafe.
