This has been a big week for me. I became an active Facebook user. I had to go through many mental hurdles to do this. The time and psychic space it might suck from my life, another screen app to rapture my attention, another password to remember, among other things. However much like a 50's housewife who knows when the roast is done I knew I had cooked this long enough and it was time for me to come out.
There have been many gifts having entered this cyber passage. I have reconnected with friends from my past that I have so much love and affection for, I have a new outlet to connect with clients on, and I found my nanny from when I was a kid that was my own personal Mary Poppins. However the most surprising gift has been my ability to see my younger self with such love and acceptance and truly own parts of my story that were too tender to see.
I was so painfullly insecure in high school. I was a transplant to a prep school that had kids going to it since they were in kindergarten. The cliques were tight, the girls were confident, and to top it off most of them went home to their parents at the end of the day. There was a small contingent of us who boarded at the school. Not only did I feel like I did not belong but I could not leave. I lost my sense of self and I felt as if I had to keep all of those feelings of not measuring up to myself and soldier on the best my fourteen year old self knew how. This looked like a bunch of coping mechanisms that were neither helathy nor well thought out or informed.
I had been one of the confident girls in my hometown of Miami Beach before my parents made the move to the British Virgen Islands. But now I felt like an alien. To mask my insecurity I put up walls. Thick dark walls that let not much light in and insulated me from both enjoyment and pain. I look back on this girl with such a closed and scared heart. I would try to lose my voice by screaming all night into a pillow as I was too scared to give a presentation. I would make excuses about why I could not go to the beach when a cute boy called because I didn't feel my body was worthy. I loved to dance and was theatrical as a kid but never joined the dance team or tried for a play because I was just too scared.. Any chance I had to do drugs and drink (and there were plenty at boarding school with no parents to check on you) I would so that I did not have to feel into my loneliness shame or pain.
I now can see this girl clearly... I see her and I love her and I wish I could whisper in her ear.. "you are light.. you are joy.. you are beautifully sensitive.. you are beyond loveable.." I see my daughter and I vow to use all of this to serve and foster her self esteem as she grows up. There is so much value here, now that I can see it clearly. I am so much more appreciative of who I am knowing what it took to get me to this here spot.
Notice the "grunge" era clothing to the left. Right- Visiting home in Tortola and hugging my pops.
