In a previous blog post, I wrote about how I was putting myself on the path to find out who I am now. What do I need? What do I like? Who am I outside of someone's something? I was talking with my best friend, Keri, and something she said resonated with me, and I don't even think that it was something she meant to be as profound as it was. She said, "All of us have a lot of learning and unlearning to do." And instantly, I fell in love with that idea.
Unlearning. From the second we are born everything about what we do is learning how to do it and how to get better. Learn to smile, learn to eat, learn to walk, learn to shower, learn to share, learn to love. But not every teacher was worth listening to. We had teachers who showed us how to take pain we didn't deserve, who showed us how to make ourselves smaller so they could look bigger, and who showed us that what we wanted or felt we needed didn't matter.
I'm guilty of being damaged. I'm guilty of being someone I'm not happy with anymore and after living my life in a way that was molded to please those around me, I'm ready to step out of that. I am someone's mother, I am someone's partner. I am someone's daughter, someone's friend, and someone's safe space. It's time for me to be more than that.
So I'm unlearning all the things I picked up from failed teachers. Teachers who molded me to be something that worked for everyone else but me. I failed myself in letting that happen. To unlearn all the crippling behaviors I picked up will take time. I don't have time on my side anymore; as I get older I just get more set in my ways and resolve to staying the same. But as much as I want to change, and be better to myself, it seems like it's just easier to stay the same.
I was someone who was in love with love. I thought being a good wife would earn me happiness. I thought learning how to cook, stay home, give up my friends, being a good mom, and all those things would actually be the secret to life. Then you stop and think: If being a good person was the key to happiness, why the hell do so many people cheat, and hurt, and scheme their way through life?
It's simple. Being a good person doesn't earn you shit in this life. There are assholes littering social media with their happiness and destroying the souls of the kind until nothing is left but a gaping hole. What is there to say about that? I am a soul who latches, I know that about myself. I fix myself on to you and I break my back for love, hope, happiness, YOUR happiness. So how do I unlearn to not ask you questions about where you've been? How do I unlearn to care about the little ways you can tell everyone I'm yours? How do I unlearn sleeping alone?
I have a long way to go. Everyone does. Even if we stick with our partners for life, people become more of who they are, and with that evolution comes a need to unlearn the way you've been dealing and usher in the new style. As I unlearn all the things that make me the very things I hate about myself, and I know others would hate if they knew about me, I'm carving out a new person. I don't know how others will feel about this person and I'd be lying if I said I didn't care. But somewhere underneath the pain, the tears, the lies, and the sweat, is a woman who someone will appreciate, unlearned and all.
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