Check their reflection

I was skimming an article on Emotional Vampires this afternoon and contemplating the vampires in my life. It took me a long time to recognize them; even longer to accept without trying to change, or fix, or fight, about the fact that my family is maybe… not as supportive as the say they are.

I have always been a "believe what you tell me", in spite of mountains of evidence to the contrary, kind of girl. It is occasionally a blessing, but most often leaves me feeling a little silly, as I am inevitably the last person in the room to realize the ship is sinking, or that someone is really not being the “good person” they tell me they are. I would have been the girl on the titanic up to my neck in water going we’re not sinking they say the Titanic is unsinkable…

Anyhow to a point. The last conversation I had with the largest Vampire in my life was a conversation about how another person in my family had lived “my dream”. I was shocked to discover that my Vampire didn't recognize that A) I chose to walk away from that “dream” because as with many childhood fantasies the reality was just so ignoble. Even I could recognize that I was going to have to compromise who I was to become who I wanted to be, and if I were to do that - I could never be who I fantasized I would be once I attained the position I aspired to. B) I was saddened to realize that I am not sure the supposed “dream thief” ever spent any time chasing her own dream, and for that she had talent to spare. But then again perhaps she had the same revelation I had.

Somewhere along the way of trying really hard to compete, catch up, and find acceptance as a member of my family I realized that making my brothers, sister, mother, cousins, aunts and uncles happy was not the same thing as being happy. As long as I was willing to try and be the person they said they wanted me to be the longer I would not know who I was. This is probably a self-evident truth to most of you, in my family it seems to be the brass ring that we all strive for and few if any of us ever achieve.

I believe now that it was the gift my father always had, and is what made him so admired and revered amongst his siblings and nieces and nephews. I know he was never able to articulate it in a way that made sense to any of us, and I think I finally understand that he hoped that confidence would be his legacy to us.

Tragically I find its not so much the truth, my siblings just don’t seem to want to be happy, they just want to have more, do more own more than the other, or their neighbor. I am never going to rule the world, probably not even my piece of it, but I love what I do more days than I dislike it. I have amazing friends, and a great family. A husband who reminds me with love that I am less than perfect, and two little boys who think I am. How could I not be happy with that? We own more of our house that the bank does, we are healthy, successful and respected as competent in our fields

My wish for you and my children is understand your dream, getting where you want to go doesn’t guarantee you will be who you want to be when you get there. Sometimes you have to choose which is more important. Embrace who you are, and where you are, success isn’t always measured by 0’s on the left side of the decimal. Truly happiness is your choice to make, no one else is responsible to give it to you.