In my marriage I find it difficult to walk the fine line between changing for myself and changing for him.  It’s not that I don’t think it is valuable to change for someone else, but I don’t think it is a great place to start sustainable change.  Plus, I’ve spent my whole life trying to get comfortable with who I am … teen angst still has the capacity to take me down in my 40s.

I married a teacher.  At the time, I would have described him as dedicated to making a change in the world, smart, adventurous, caring, funny, creative, capable, energetic, daring, extroverted, responsible, and a fabulous dancer.  The work he was doing with at-risk teens was awe-inspiring and he took his job very seriously.  He was learning to play the fiddle and the mandolin, which impressed me a great deal, since I have never considered myself to have a lick of musical talent.  He had saved enough money after college to go back to graduate school.  He had then saved enough money after graduate school to buy his first house.  He climbed 14,000 foot mountains with his dog and came home smelling of sweat, campfires, and pot.  He was the best kind of guy, but with just enough bad boy thrown in to make him irresistible.

When I got married I was a certain shape, very thin and petite.  I was also disorganized, a lousy housekeeper, I never cooked (didn’t even own a pan), and was totally irresponsible with my money.  After years of flailing about trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, and my undergraduate degree in Humanities (eye roll), I had finally thrown in the towel and gone back to school for a graduate degree in education and a teaching certificate.  I was, and still am, eight years younger than my husband.

I have often wondered what made him decided I was the right woman for him.  I have often wondered if my husband just truly believed that getting married and having children would miraculously turn me into a great housekeeper, a responsible money manager, a cook … but never change my body shape.

Change happens over time.  Some things never change.

 

I published my first article at 12. I won my first writing contest at 14. No prodigy here, but I loved the written word and dreamed of being a great author someday. You would think these little achievements would have boosted my confidence, lit the fire that would propel me to writing the next American novel. The psychology of the teen mind, the ravages of hormones on the logical brain, don’t always allow for the obvious outcome.

I felt like my mom helped too much with my article. It made me feel like, maybe, I only succeeded because of her help. Maybe I wasn’t really that good of a writer. (I could post a link to the article which has since been digitized along with the magazine it was published in, but since I’m writing under a pseudonym … well that would defeat the purpose of the anonymity.)

I wrote the winning story for my sister. She didn’t want to do the story for the contest, so we made a deal. I wrote the story and she did something for me – I don’t have any idea what that was, probably cleaning my bedroom or something that felt fair at the time. “Her” story won the contest. It did neither of us any favors. She felt guilty but she couldn’t tell anyone the truth – and to this day she will probably tell you she can’t write and use that contest as the proof (she was in 5^th grade at the time). I felt weird for having won something, but under someone else’s name. Why couldn’t I write like that under my name?

So, I never submitted another article. I never entered another contest. I second guess my writing, it is never perfect enough. I could never live up to this talent my mom always bragged about.

I have started so many blogs, only to let them fade away after only a couple posts, certain I have nothing worth writing nor the skill to write. It is my own narcissism. On one hand, I feel like I am supposed to write, to be a writer, an author. I feel it deep in my bones. But on the other hand, by always questioning my abilities and my passions, I protect them from scrutiny. As long I don’t give anyone the opportunity to wreck the dream, I get to keep believing that I am talented, that I will be a writer someday. I get to be my own unsung hero.