Wandering Mind

My entire life I have lived in my mind's concept of others' projections of who I should be. A bookworm, living in another person's imagination while growing up. A blossoming butterfly in college, living other people's perceptions of me. A newly hatched butterfly in early adulthood, tentatively trying on different personas.

In my newly minted 30's, I am exploring my grit, purpose, motivations and reconnecting with my passions. Testing my confidence. Pushing comfort levels of what others perceive me to be, and what I want others to think of me. I won't be so pompous as to claim I care not what others think of me. Because that would be a flat out lie.

I am no longer blaming others' best attempts to do what they thought best for me. I am taking accountability for allowing myself to feel a victim instead of a conqueror. Recognizing I lost that beautifully complex, overly emotional, explorative, vibrant little girl I once was to the visions others painted for me to inhabit.

I'm intense. I'm overly aware of emotions - both my own and others. Doesn't mean I can put a definition to or understand the emotions many times. But I feel. Intensely.

I find it strange myself, but as a young teenager, I identified I was an old soul in a young body. My great-grandmother, Grinny, was my example of what it means to give your all for someone or something you love. She is the old soul I have been aspiring to be the majority of my life.

I've been underestimated and underrepresented a good portion of my life. As a result, I've developed the drive to, "play bigger than I look [Carly Lloyd]". I'm quite frankly tired of having to prove myself because I have proven to myself that I am more capable than I ever imagined even in my wildest dreams.

Because I am so intense, I feel my emotions are a burden to others. I also feel that letting others, even those closest to me, see my many emotions would be too much. It would make me too vulnerable. I have overwhelmed others when I expose a lot. Upon reflecting, I don't believe I knew how to be deliberate in the way in which I shared my vulnerabilities and emotions. The best way to describe it would be that I would have emotional diarrhea all over them. Who wouldn't be traumatized and overwhelmed by that?!

Now that I have recognized my fault in how I shared myself with those closest to me, I can now enhance our relationships by controlling how I share my true self with them. I am taking the personal accountability I should for that.