I am learning a lot more about myself than I have ever learned in my twenties. I am finally coming to a place in my life where I am beginning to accept myself more. Growing up I never felt comfortable with my sense of uniqueness. I stuck out like a sore thumb no matter how hard I attempted to mask my uniqueness. My cultural background was different, my mentality was different and my passions were different. It didn't matter where I was or who I was around I always felt how different I was and not just among my peers but even among my relatives. It came out in the way I dressed and in the conversations I had with other people. I didn't know how to hide my uniqueness but I knew how to hide in other people's shadows. I knew how to make myself available to meet their needs and their standards and make myself pleasing to them yet it was never enough.
In my subconscious naivety I believed that if I did what people wanted then maybe they would look past my difference and accept me. I would no longer be viewed as foreign. Being foreign meant that I would be susceptible to being misunderstood and that was my biggest fear. I use to fear being misunderstood the way a child feared a fictional monster. I wanted the acceptance and validation from men and women to be my portion. I didn't realize back then that although acceptance and validation was good to have, it was not a necessity.
In reference to my childhood I was never allowed the room nor the opportunity to express how I felt or thought. Growing up fatherless, being Haitian american and growing up with different value systems than my peers created a lot of turmoil for me. I was never in an atmosphere where I could talk about what I cared about, or what I didn't care about. There wasn't room to talk about the events that became the fertilizer to my depression and feelings of suicide. I couldn't see my worth.
To now be in my thirties and realize that I never needed anyone's permission,validation or acceptance to be me has allowed me to finally open the door to learning how to love myself. I am now able to see just how much I was filled with rejection, fear and abandonment issues. I am now on a journey of self acceptance, liberation and support. I finally know what it's like to have the capacity to walk in my difference and to know that I am consciously working on myself these days. I am more conscious about checking in with myself emotionally and mentally and surveying what's going on within myself and the beautiful reward in that is wellness, growth and a greater awareness of oneself.
