YOU are enough

I'm 5' 6 1/2" tall. This may not mean much to most but to me, as a teenager, it meant I was 1/2 an inch too short to get modelling work. I wasn't going to become a Supermodel at that height so I resigned myself to modelling failure and I focused on acting Truthfully I preferred the acting as it gave me a character to hide behind, which was my coping mechanism in my teenage years. Later I became a talent agent, having been part of the industry it gave the an interesting insight about people.

Inside every one of us is a scared 17 year old filled with doubt.

Last night the daughter of a good friend was asking me about this, as she had been told by peers that she would never be able to model.

As teenagers we do daily war with bullies, naysayers and mean girls. Kids, here's a horrible secret the grown ups neglected to tell you.....

Growing up isn't going to fix this. Life is full of bullies and mean girls and all sorts of rude, rough, unfairness and there is nothing you can do about it.

As grown ups we joke about trying to figure out what we're going to be when we grow up, but the truth is that caught inside each of us is a freaked out 17 year old questioning life. Even the most confident adults have moments where they wonder.

Did I make the right choice? Why did I say that? How could I have handled that better? Why don't the right words come until AFTER a conversation is done? Why can't I lose this weight? When will I stop struggling to make ends meet? Did I do enough? Have I acquired enough? Am I tall enough? Skinny enough? Smart enough?

Here's the good news, YOU are enough. And because you are enough, you will learn to handle it yourself. You learn to pretend your way through the roughest of situations.

Sometimes you'll still curl up under your covers at night (or mid afternoon) wishing the issue that plagues you away. Then you'll dig down deep crawl out of bed and deal.

Somewhere along the line, in the battle against life, societal norms and age you will realize that your experience is unique to you. Your truth is yours and yours alone. People won't agree with you or fall in line, but its yours to own.

Success is simply the choice to be where you are everyday. The best way to handle a mean girl, naysaying bully? Be better. Do better. Show compassion, after all she or he are as little as the words they need to use to make themselves feel bigger. That isn't worth your time or energy. The best revenge is to be who you are and have a life well lived. Nothing annoys them more.

I got there on my own...

It's funny how you can live your life and not see certain things about yourself that others can. And when you see it, well, it's pretty humbling...

In a previous post I talked about how I hate conflict. And that came from a bunch of things (people) who are behaving badly around me. I'm not saying I'm behaving so amazingly that they've nothing to criticize, that would be unrealistic and frankly quite arrogant. I'm not purporting to be perfect, it's just that instead of dealing with it, I seem to have various relationships that have begun to hang in limbo because of communication issues.

Because of some of these hiccups a feeling of fear and inadequacy reared its ugly head in the last few weeks in a way that was startling to me. I didn't understand it, and because of it I felt like my relationship was suddenly in jeopardy. Completely unfounded feeling based upon my reality, my present, THIS relationship.

I have never had more gratitude for Kyle than I have these last few weeks as he's watched me flounder, get pummelled, be beaten down, get back up and then take another hit. He's been powerless to help, in terms of others, but I'm truly amazed by his ability to understand the importance of 'just being there'.

Humbling.

Everyone brings the baggage of experience to a relationship and he and I are no exception to this rule. We've both been treated badly along the way, been wounded and some of those wounds have formed who we are today.

This last week I faced an unexpected challenge from an unexpected source. When that happened I immediately snapped to survival mode. Self protection comes easily and immediately to me, and I thought the absolute worst.

What I realized through the process (it took me a full day to come to terms, understand and be reasonable about what happened) is that I had to 'get there' on my own. Kyle saw what was happening because he knows my story, he knows what I've been through and where I've come to. But only I had the power to understand the why. Being told wouldn't help me get there sooner. I spent 15 years doubting my value when I was married. I've spent my lifetime doubting my value because of my family relationship.

I've spent the last 7 days knowing my value because I got there on my own, with love walking beside me, holding my hand.

Humbling.

This is a lesson in more than a romantic relationship, we do not have a perfect relationship. That is an impossible ideal to put upon anyone. What we have is respect, understanding, admiration, and oh, so much more. Instead of jumping in love, we both unconsciously (or at least I wasn't cognizant we were doing this...he might have been, he's smart like that) "built" in love. We've learned about each other, chosen how we talk to each other. And in doing so we've found our way for two years now.

And now, this week, after 16 years of being a mum, he's shown me why his family is so successful as a family. He's shown me why he's such a great parent to these four fantastic kids. He's shown me that little, but significant, piece that I just didn't get about the value of letting them get there on their own. Some things you can't fix, but you can still love, encourage and support.

And he did it with a simple phrase followed by not a single word.

The phrase? "I'm on your side."

Love.