Enough or too much?

For decades I’ve struggled with not being enough or being too much…. Imagine walking into a party and feeling so very alone. We scan the room, looking for anyone that sparks recognition, watching for signs of people turning away, changing direction, averting their eyes… and finding it…. Because it’s true because I just saw it….

I got validated over and over again that my sense of self was mostly too much:

Too loud

Too quick

Too smart

Too too too

I always seemed to figure out the end of a story well in advance… I interpreted body language and could tell when someone was getting fidgety and wanting to leave… I knew if they got to know me more that I’d surely intimidate.

“Girls aren’t supposed to be smarter than boys, Sonja” my grandmother taught me early.

No one will ever love you for you. You’d better change. You aren’t very cute so you have to stay thin. You’re too fat (I weighed 130 pounds for fuck sake)

You are terrible at sports, you’re only mediocre at piano playing. You have a nice voice in a choir - you’ll never be a soloist. Your hair has no body, you’d better fix that right away.

Your eyes are too big, your chin too small, your head too big, your boobs too small (then they were too big after babies - jeez)

You chew your nails, shame on you. You are so lazy! You won’t amount to anything because you don’t apply yourself. You will be alone unless you marry this abusive bully. So I did.

You couldn’t get pregnant, said the 6th doctor that wouldn’t acknowledge the pain I was having with what I didn’t know at the time was tremendously scarring endometriosis. You have a pooch stomach. You’re too fat. Your legs are stumpy, you’re too short. You do a lot of things well but excel at nothing.

Ok. Are you tired of that? 

Does that help to spew it? Yes it fucking does…

NONE OF THIS IS TRUE! 

I’m beautiful and scary and amazing and brilliant and perfectly imperfect and wise and empathic and intuitive as hell. I’ve lived cramped in little boxes and am kicking the edges and smashing the walls down… NO MORE! I’ve learned from all that self-hate and dread… I’m not living those lies, nor looking for the signals. I’m seeing the magic of me and singing at the top of my lungs, expecting others to join me in this new delicious delight. Take my hand!