mulberryshoots

I’ve always thought there was a secret about me that others knew and wouldn’t tell me, and that I couldn’t see for myself. Have you ever felt that way too?

At first, I thought it was the reason that my mother treated me badly; or that my father ignored me. Or the reason that the love of my life in college suddenly quit on me. Later on, I realized it was more about them and what was going on in their lives than it was about me. I think that I wanted love too much. And when things didn’t work out, I blamed it on myself. It’s easy to do that and the desire for and loss of love makes the world go around, doesn’t it?

Life went on and I did time in a first marriage that was subversive, went nowhere and was radio silent. It lasted a very long time, partly due to my own lack of will to rock the boat, even though I wanted to be on dry land.

Later on, I thought maybe it was due to the intensity of my personality or maybe because I was too strong-willed. Now, I don’t care anymore. I don’t think there’s anything hidden that I haven’t dug around or dug up somewhere along the line. In fact, I think that fearing that there was a secret made me slightly paranoid and defensive; erring on the side of spending too much money on things and wanting to please other people in order to over-compensate, willy nilly. It seems rather silly that I felt I had to pay a surcharge in order to be accepted. Sort of like having to work harder for less credit than everyone else because you’re a woman and also a minority, a throwback to the last century.

What a waste of resources. Mostly a waste of my own sense of self, I think. You can’t change other people, they say, only yourself.

But on that one, I think I’m fine just as I am. Or, in today’s jargon, “I’m good.”