Wonderful and Marvelous » Blog Archive » The rules you live by…

The rules you live by…

March23

I have a fear of being completely myself in the world.

I’m sure there are all kinds of reasons, circumstance, people I could pin the blame on for me feeling this way… but none of that matters really. What matters is that I recognize this fear and how it inhibits my life.

I think sometimes it’s a fear that if I’m one way, I have completely and totally pigeonholed myself to be that way forever and ever. I’m more afraid of that than almost anything.

But… if I reach down even further… and push myself to be a little more honest, it’s also a fear that some parts of me aren’t acceptable. Do you know what I mean?

Like… at my age (the wise old almost age of 36), I shouldn’t still have the desire to roll down grassy green hills. Or at my age, I should always behave like a proper adult. At my age, I shouldn’t still giggle at fart jokes, or be amazed by the sight of a wiggly, wrinkled earth worm.

There’s a litany of phrases like that in my head. Not just related to my age, but what “good” girls/people should do… what responsible people should do, what mothers should be like, what women should be like, what wives should be like…

I’m learning that every time I hear a “should” phrase in my head, I need to pay attention. Because those are the hidden rules that I’m living by, whether I’m aware of it or not. And they’re the rules that I’m judging myself by too.

There’s one rolling through my head right now in fact… the one that says “A good blogger ends every post on a positive, upbeat note.” And let’s not forget the one that says “I should have a moral to the story if I’m any kind of writer…”

For the rest of the week, I’m going to keep a written log of all the unconscious rules I have running through my head. I invite you to do the same… meet me back here on Friday and we can have show and tell.