I'm Sorry You Were Ever Born, Irene Goodnight.

    Thanks to a hurricane I've had to cancel work tomorrow with my client, and our date night hit a little earlier, leaving the fiance and I to have a nice night in. I'm not even mad! It's a nice change from the go, go, go pace we've been keeping... Two days off in a row sound really nice. Secretly I'm hoping we actually do lose power so we can play all off the grid and have some no technology time.
    I was productive before our date tonight though, I went to therapy. My lovely shrink and I talked a lot about where power lies in my life right now. For most of my life I've felt like I have had so little control over what goes on. I've always had someone else to answer to, someone I was working for, and someone that would benefit from what I was doing... and that someone was hardly ever me. For the first time in 23 years I'm finally in control of my life. Sure I'm working crazy hard and things get rough, but I'm doing everything for myself and my future. I'm not working to make someone else happy, I'm not trying to please everyone around me, and I'm not answering to anyone except my self. Of course I still like to make other people happy, but now I have the opportunity to allow it to be about myself, only trying to please the people I want to please, not everyone.
    The steps that I've been going through over the past year are intense for sure. The people closest to me know how much I've changed, and we all agree it's been for the best. It's taken a long time to get to a point where I'm comfortable with myself, at least comfortable enough to live my life for me.
    There's a line in a song by Laura Marling: "It's hard to accept yourself as someone you don't desire, someone you don't want to be." That song struck a chord with me when I first listened to it, and I think that the first step of changing is accepting who you are. If you can't realistically see who you are, you can't change it. To go through a process of accepting yourself in all of your ugliness and imperfection  is daunting on its own. Once that step is taken you have to seriously consider if change is something you can do, and if it's worth it. Then you have to suck it up and do it. Stop doing the things you don't like and start doing things you think might make you happy. Stick with it and work hard. If you can stick it out, you'll be able to reap your rewards.

Growing up is hard to do, and some people never bother to do it. It's an active process. We shouldn't criticize those who are unable to move on, or the people that choose not to. We don't have enough insight to see what they're up against. Consider that first we have to accept ourselves for who we are before we can change, and if you were some of the people you criticize you might not be able to accept it either.