Breaking out of old holding patterns, stereotypes and stale views of myself have been a current theme for me lately.  This story has to do with that...

When I was twenty I dated a guy who was really energetic, exciting, spiritual, a vegan, and a bit dogmatic.  When we met-- I ate chicken wings, wore a lot of make up, smoked Marlboro lights, and planned on returning to my hometown after the summer to work retail. 

This guy taught me a lot.  My time with him was not only very exciting and new, but also very difficult for me.  He loved me, and wanted to show me new things, but he also wanted me to change.  We were together for 3 years and at the end of that time I was a totally different person.  I had dropped all my friends, and changed my lifestyle completely.  I looked different, acted different, and had different interests.  Some of it fit.  Some of it didn't.

The next 3 years were spent trying on different sides of myself and really seeing what fit.  What was me and what was him.  Where had I experienced real growth and where was I conforming to someone else's vision of me.

After that relationship I had a whole new set of rules on how I felt comfortable expressing myself.  I remained a vegetarian but started to party and eat junk food.  I stopped painting, but beat myself up over my lack of creative outlet.  There was language I would no longer use because I felt like it was his not mine.  Those new rules became my new holding pattern.  My new box.  I had broken his mold, but was creating my own and it worked for me for a little while.

Becoming a mother has forced that box open again.  I am growing with my child in a way that is recognizable and sizable.  I yearned for this kind of personal growth in my twenties, and here I am one cheerio at a time seeing it happen with ease and discomfort alike.

This new growth spurt is making me revisit the parts of myself that I had decided belonged to that guy.  But this time it is surely me.  This means I am playing around with language that I at one time labeled too foo foo (energy, visions, intentions, etc), letting go of my judgment of those words, and playing around with them--finding others I am a little more comfortable with and seeing what fits.  The food part, well...that is me now.  The artist inside?  She's there, creating (one of those words) some beautiful food and letting the side that likes to paint, paint for fun.

This is an exciting time for me and one of the best gifts is to be able to share it with you.  Writing helps me.  It makes ideas tangible and helps me process.  If my words help someone peek into a box of there own, than how fabulous and if no one reads this, well that is just fine too.  Its out there and it's mine.