Learning more about me

So I've been talking to someone who rather casually makes me think.  Just off handed comments that I drag into deep thought.

It started with the big one... my name.   I was given a name, I changed it.   Whole lot of hurt and heartache tied up there.   I made a conscious decision to close a chapter of my life and let 'her' be the title.   So essentially she could keep the memories and I could move forward afresh.   Hey, I was 13 and had no one to help me cope, so I found a method that at the time worked rather well.    So now I'm told the name made me who I am.   And the memories flow.  The deep thinking ensues.   Nearly a week later, I came to the terrible conclusion that what I did was the equivalent of abandoning a child with all my pain so I could be free.   Dang.   The upside...  a name that once stiffened my spine whenever I heard it; doesn't anymore.   I needed to survive.   I'm grown now and I own what I did all the same.

As to the name I have, it still feels more 'me' but I think that's partly because I've been carrying that name around for 31 years now and partly because I couldn't hear the other name for the same number of years without pain.

Next big thought...  me.   I often say I'm as old as I am because that's when I was born, as tall as I am because that's when I stopped growing, brown eyed because my mother was, so hey, I am as I am.   Except the standard, I have all the physical flaws.   My weight is not where I'd like it to be and I need to make more time to get out on my bike.   I'll leave out the quote, but it made me go 'huh?'.    So I'm taking a good long look at me and I feel kinder to myself now.  Sure I still want to get out on my bike and it wouldn't hurt me to hit the gym more often. I just don't have to wait for perfect to love how I look.

It's something, talking to a free spirit.   I had to say just the other day that they made me happy simply being. Because I can honestly say I know someone who lives an authentic life and makes it work.  

One day - I want that to be me.   I live a deliberate life, but mostly I've played by the rules, tried to do all the 'right' things in the hope that I'd be (shocker coming) safe.  I'm deliberate but will sacrifice myself all to often to make the world happy.  I live to make it a better world.  People matter.  Those are not trite words.  They are not rhetoric.  They are not drivel that best fit a facebook meme.  They are my deepest desires.   Thing is I'm learning, I'm people too.  

Whole lot of thinking and learning this past week and it feels so good.