Okay To Be Me

Another assignment (Week 1 Day 5) for the class through the Travelin’Oma blog.

Okay to be me.

I remember very clearly the first time that I felt that it was okay to be me.

All through junior high and high school there was a girl that I admired and I thought she was perfect. I was sure that if I just looked like her, talked like her, and acted like her, everyone would adore me. I would be a coveted friend as well as the girl of every boy’s dreams – if only I could be her instead of me. There were others that I felt similarly about, but none so much as her. This feeling plagued me for several years until I was a junior in high school. Every time I saw her, I thought about how sad I was that I could never be just like her, no matter how hard I tried. Then one day I saw her walking down the hall and sighed to myself as I contemplated how much I wanted to be her. At that moment, two boys standing next to me commented to each other that they didn’t think she was that cute. Shocked, I blurted out, “You really don’t think she’s cute?” I wasn’t even thinking about how I had been eavesdropping and not really invited to hear this observation in the first place. However, they didn’t seem to mind and replied, “No, she’s not that cute at all!”

I had a revelation at that moment. The “ideal” in my mind was not necessarily the ideal for everyone. In fact, it occurred to me that there is not one single person on this earth that everyone else thinks is beautiful, kind, witty, and generally desirable. Not even movie stars. Not even this girl that I had idolized for years. So, since there is no way to please everyone, why not be happy being who you are? This was so liberating for me and I finally felt okay just being me. I still had things I didn’t necessarily love about myself and many goals of things I wanted to do differently. But it felt good to not be anyone else at that moment and just be myself.