Free to Be Me

I have another blog, which is for poetry and creative writing.  There are a couple of weekly challenges that I play along with to keep me writing at least little bits on a regular basis.  On Fridays, it's G-man's Flash Fiction Friday 55 (write a short fiction story in 55 words) and on Wednesdays it's Jenn's Sensational Haiku Wednesday (she gives us a theme, we write a haiku).  Yesterday was Wednesday and in the course of visiting a few other writers' blogs, I came across Tara Tyler's haiku:

Family haven

Safe from harsh worldly judgments

Free to be yourself

This week we weren't given a theme for our haikus, so Tara's son gave her one: family.  She wrote 3 haikus but this one stuck with me.  It stuck because, even if I had written this, it would have been partly fantasy.  This is the way families are supposed to be but I never would have been able to honestly put "family haven" and "free to be yourself" together in the same context.

I can't say with any certainty whether or not I was free to be myself as a child, because I don't remember.  Once my teen years hit, I know for certain that I certainly was not very free to be myself.  My parents took issue with my clothes, my music and my friends and my sister never failed to make 'jokes' about my "blender music" or my "mutant" friends.  While I didn't go into hiding all-together, I learned quickly to keep a low profile and subdue most of who I was in order to get along better at home.

From my parents' home, I moved to Germany and lived with another family as an au-pair for a few years.  This family was quite open and accepting, but because I was in a different country and all my surroundings were not what I was accustomed to, I was never able to really be myself there either.  Making any friends was hard enough as it was, so I gave up on actually hoping to make friends that had similar interests. 

Fast forward another few years to when I have a family of my own.  I met my husband while I was living abroad and wasn't really myself.  My husband has seen glimpses of the real me, but he never embraced those parts of me so they were once again pushed aside.  My marriage has never fostered open communication and I have been criticized so often that by now, the thought of being myself at home fills me with fear and trepidation.  I think my children would be that safe haven and accept me for who I am, but by now I'm not sure I know anymore how to be myself.

Because, as I have learned, the real me is not publicly acceptable.  My interests, my music and my ways are not mainstream and are not things most people can relate to.  For those who have relatable interests then I think being yourself is not that much of an issue -- you can be yourself and find others who will accept you and not judge you.  I have been judged by my family and the world at large and I have learned that I am not acceptable.  Not all of me.  Not all at once.  Not yet.

Maybe one day I'll find a way to be myself.  Maybe some day I'll find people who accept me for who I am.  In the meantime, I hope that at the very least, I can provide that family haven for my children, so that they can be safe from worldly judgement and be free to be themselves.