I find myself pondering the deeper meaning of my own humanity, the meaning and value that I add not to this world, but to those that I surround myself with. The traits that uniquely belong to me and the morals to which I hold.
I wonder how much my life has measured up to the dreams of myself that I had when I was a little girl. Maybe not of my life, but of who I am, and who I am becoming.
Do I offer those in my life enough? Is my conversation too little most of the time and those things I actually choose to discuss…are they dull? I’m an odd duck and I have been my entire life. Am I synced enough with the world we live in to end each day successfully? How do you measure that? Most connections thrive because of mental stimulus. Am I stimulating?
Often, I am asked what I want out of life. What career field I am passionate in, what title I want, what pay range I believe I qualify for. So long as there has been a roof over my head and food on my table, I have never given much thought to it. I have sought more for memories than I have of status. I have wanted more for personal long-lasting connections than I have of gifts wrapped in elegant bows. Even if it is in silence, I yearn for time with someone. Not the trinket that stays once they’ve gone.
When I think about what I want out of life, I only want that which I don’t feel I’ve ever truly had (historically). Real love, loyalty, and freedom. Make no mistake, the freedom that I speak of is freedom from myself. I want to be free of the self-doubt. The crippling fear that those I choose to hold so close to my heart will judge me or cast me astray because of something minute and insignificant. I want the freedom to be who I am without guilt. I want a love so deep that even after 1000 years, if I felt lost within myself, that love would be fought for by the other and I would be beckoned to find my way back home. I want loyalty not just from those that would feel obligated, but from those that would step foot first into war without needing to know why, only that I needed them. I want to disagree or argue without the fear that constant peace and agreement is the only thing keeping us close.
I want the love, loyalty, and freedom where I feel safe to make mistakes.
I want to be able to make mistakes without feeling the shame for years after.
What mistakes? All of the insignificant mistakes that people make that make them human. That help define them and help them grow into something better because they are able to retain the lesson but let go of the experience. Something I haven’t learned to do. I bear both the burden and the knowledge.
Mistakes like cooking a bad meal, getting too drunk, making themselves look foolish, failing at a task, overreacting, rambling on at eleven at night because I bottled up something that didn’t even matter. The mistakes that define a person, yet a memory that dissipates into a thought of yesterday until it is so obsolete that no one remembers. I always remember. Of all the haunts in this world, I haunt myself the most. I am the thing in the darkness that keeps myself up at night.
(I have read this post up until this point almost every day for a month and a half. I have been disgusted at it, proud of it, and numb. I have acknowledged how far I have come and I have wondered how far I have to go).
And at the end of the day all I want is what everyone wants, friends that are family and family that loves me unconditionally. Does it matter if I am not enough for people that I have in my life? No. Why? Because if I am not enough, the weak and the fake will leave. Good riddance to them. If I am enough but I’m slacking on our relationship, the strong and the real will pull my head out of my ass. That’s what we do.
I HAVE THAT ALREADY.
I have that family and I have those very few people that I consider family already so close to me. There are people I have known for over a decade and some that I met within the last year. It is amazing to me how much time known is so insignificant. They become your family despite how long you’ve known them because they are good humans, they are good for you, loyal, and they just become “your people.” They become someone you watch out for, that you would do anything for, that you help grow, support, and even disagree with. It’s the person that you can look at and tell them that they are being a dumb-ass without jeopardizing the bond because who wouldn’t want that type of person looking out for you? It is RARE. It is up to us that have those type of people in our lives to hold on to them.
“I wonder how much my life has measured up to the dreams of myself that I had when I was a little girl. Maybe not of my life, but of who I am, and who I am becoming. “
I have exceeded the person that I thought I would be every step of the way. I have conquered personal demons, bad friends, failed relationships, judgement. I have conquered LIFE up until this point and I have kept my humanity. My empathy, ability to love, forgiveness, mercy, all of it has stayed intact. I have gained strength, fierceness, confidence, dignity, tact, and all the things that make a warrior. I have kept every part of what makes me who I am intact and THAT my friends, is all that I could hope for myself and for anyone.
My humanity is all that I need it to be and nothing in this life will ever dim it.
Tammy Lee
1/8/2020
Unrefined Life Adventures 