Permission

The sun kissed my skin as the waves licked the rocks around me. It felt as though I was sitting on my own personal granite-Titanic and the world was my oyster. It was in this very moment where I first began to feel my old exterior crack apart. As the pieces of my former self fell away and splashed into the ocean, the sunlight eased its way into me, taking up residence in all of the gaps that were left behind. Soon, I felt complete again, and the sun reflected off of the new me – the true me. It was then and there that I truly gave myself permission to be, me.

Let me elaborate. This feeling of my authentic self bursting through the blinds it had been hiding behind for so many years before, didn’t come to me unprovoked. It was actually inspired by Eat, Pray, Love – not the movie, the book – by Elizabeth Gilbert. And truth be told, I didn’t make it much past the preface. Evidently that was all I needed to read at that point in my life for the words to resonate, and for me to begin to think differently about the world. My world. From what I remember – and I could probably use a refresh considering how much it left an impression on me – she talks a lot about not having and/or wanting kids. And suddenly, it dawned on me. Not to sound cliche, but it quite literally hit me like a ton of bricks. As a woman, I don’t have to have kids! And that realization was only the beginning…

I was freshly out of a long, unserving, unhealthy relationship that ended very necessarily. And while I wouldn’t describe myself as ‘lost,’ I was definitely wondering… what comes next? I was living in Portland, Maine and I had just moved into my very own studio apartment months prior. I knew I had a whole life left ahead of me, and I was looking forward to it! But it was very hard for me to separate myself from the ‘Mold of Society.’

The ‘Mold of Society’ from my perspective is as follows, and it begins in your early teens:

Go to college. (I dropped out).

Get a degree. (You can’t do that if you drop out).

Get married. (Mid-late 20s).

Have kids. (At some point soon after).

Live happily ever after. (If you follow the steps. And in that order).

All throughout my life up until that very pivotal seaside moment, I had always pictured myself having kids. I had, and still have, an incredibly close connection with my mom, especially considering she was my sole parent as a single mother. When you are raised only knowing one thing, one way of life, you begin to envision that for yourself – even if by default, as it is what you are most exposed to. So to me, that also meant having kids, and ultimately, ending up a single parent myself. It wasn’t necessarily something I aspired to be, but it was what I knew, so I had just assumed that it would be my fate as well. However, when I started reading pages in that book, it was as if for the first time in my life I gave myself permission to even entertain the idea of not having kids.

Permission is a funny thing. Generally speaking, permission is when you go to someone else to get approval to do something. Usually this is someone of authority, someone you look up to, someone you respect, someone you admire, etc. So what happens when you have to start thinking about yourself as the authoritative person you look up to, respect, and admire? The whole paradigm you once knew of as your life begins to change. Suddenly, you have to put yourself in a place of respect. You have to start valuing your own opinion. You have to let yourself become the boss of you. And above all, you have to love yourself. Because what is the point of asking permission of yourself to do/think/feel things when you aren’t doing it for the best and highest serving reasons to you?

Part of me feels like this is when my life truly began. That this is where I simply allowed myself to be who I truly wanted to be… who I was meant to be. After all, who was I when I was looking for permission from outside of myself? Who was I when I was looking to society on how to dress? When I was looking to my boyfriend on how to act? When I was looking to the education system to tell me how to be successful? When jumping through ridiculous hoops for my boss to make money? Not only do I not have to be a mother if I don’t want to be, but I don’t have to live any sense of a “traditional” life. I can be successful without going to college, without getting a degree, without working a 9-5 job, without getting married, and without having kids. I am a whole damn person all on my own. I don’t need anything or anyone else to tell me what success looks like, what grace looks like, what being a parent looks like, what beauty looks like, what confidence looks like, what strenght looks like, what self love looks like, what healthy looks like. I could go on forever. But at the end of the day, I answer to myself. I decide what serves me and what does not. And I ask myself for permission. And that is how I have, and continue to find my true self.