Before I settled with down with the man I would marry and have kids with, I was very much a free sprit. I dated several men at one time. I was the chick that would say that I was coming over hang and never show up. I would show up late or not at all. I was flake and I could afford to be because I had no responsibilities and with no responsibilities I had no stress. I did not care about what people thought of me. I took care of myself first and it was all good.
Then we bought a house, got married and had back to back babies.
Somewhere along the way, while in the midst of all those life changing accomplishments, I lost a very valuable part of me.
I started to arrive early to events. When I said I was going to do something or be somewhere, I did just that. I shrunk so my family could grow. Since God was so good to bless me with a great marriage and wonderful kids, I guess I wanted people to believe that I deserved to be blessed.
For the past two weeks I have been doing some self realization. I just realized that I have become a very uptight person and I don’t like it. This is why I think I started blogging. I liked myself as a flake. In fact I loved myself! I still have the t-shirt that I wore with pride back in my glorious flaky days!
Last week, I came across this excerpt from Marianne Williamson’s “A Return to Love”
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
While reading this, I had a serious epiphany and small traces of my flakiness instantly appeared. It was magical.
We were extremely late to a play date at the pool because something else, not really important, came up. My friend was upset and I did not care. We got there, when we got there. We swam and had a great time.
We will not attend the birthday party that we RSVP’d to before I came back to my senses. Fuck it because seriously, I don’t feel like going to buy a gift and wrapping it. Period. And I am not going to.
I know that I have to keep my flakiness in check when it comes to my kids, but my son doesn’t even like the kid who is having the party. So who knows, maybe we will show up. And I am okay with that.