My Single Mom Life

While I was taking a shower this afternoon, I was doing some more thinking on the whole "fix me" thing I talked about earlier.
I want to fix me for me, not to please others.
I've learned over the years that you cannot, and never will, be able to please everyone.

You're going along nicely in your life, and you meet someone who likes you, but thinks you could be a bit better if you changed this one flaw about yourself.
You want to be loved and liked, so you get fast to work on changing that perceived flaw.
It worked, they love you now.

Then some day later in your life, you meet a new person who likes you, yet feels you could be a bit better if you change this other flaw.
Well, you want to be loved and liked by them too, so you get fast to work fixing that flaw.
It worked, they too love you now.

This cycle happens throughout your entire life, people come and go, all offering their wisdom and advice on how you could be so much better, if you change all these little flaws you never noticed before.

Then one day you wake up and look in the mirror, and there's this stranger staring back at you.
You don't recognize your own refection anymore.
You've become bits and pieces of all the different things people asked you to change for them.
You didn't change because you wanted to, you changed because they said you'd be better, and more loved and liked.
You wanted so much to have their approval and love, you changed who you were, what made you, you.

I've done that. I'm not some young thing who thinks I know everything, but I know enough about myself, and how I've changed myself over the years for other people, and along the way, I lost who I really was.
So I've been evaluating myself, and who I am, finding me again.
I realized that if I spend all kinds of time changing to make others happy, I'm not happy.
People will always have advice, and tell you how to make them happy, but they never stop and ask you what makes you happy.
They want you to fit in this cute little package of what they think would make you a better person, but never stop to see the amazing and unique person you already are.

So every morning, I'm getting up and looking in the mirror and seeing all the ways I've changed myself to be liked and loved, and accepted by others, when I should have just been myself and asked them to try to see me as I am. And if they couldn't, then maybe they were the wrong kind of people for me to be around.

I don't want to change others, I don't want to change others perceptions of me, I want them to see past those first glances, and see me as I am, if they want to.
I can only do that if I get back to who I am.
I won't always be liked or loved, I won't always be accepted, but I shouldn't have to change for others.
I'm slowly finding my way back to myself, and people are pushing against me, not wanting those changes to happen.
And that's ok.