Come As You Are (Because Nothing Else Makes Sense)

There’s nothing like a botched haircut when it comes to revealing how we insecure we feel about our appearance. Except that the haircut was not botched. I am no Edward Scissorhands but I’ve been the master of haircuts since my boys were born.

But boys grow and as they do, so do their worries. Their eyes open to a world that judges for no particular reason. ‘Am I done?’ has been replaced by ‘How does it look?’ and the verdict is never positive.

How could it be? We live in a time when pressure to be more and better than we are actually is an everyday reality.

We’re simply not good enough. If no one says it loud enough, we know they think it. They must, we think back. We assume and assumptions grow thick as trees.  Hollow trees that is.

We grow up being as curious about ourselves as we are scared of what curiosity may reveal. We are eager to create better versions but are disappointed with being just today’s version of yesterday. Not enough.

Should we be? Self-growth is real and necessary. Adjusting as we grow, taking cues from life, people and our inner guidance system, we become, we flourish and then we collapse. Not enough. Because in the end. no matter how much we aim to grow and how big the pressure, we cannot be more than ourselves, the person that once was unencumbered by fear of being judged. The person that dared to wear mismatched clothing, had the bangs hanging sideways and was never afraid to affirm who they were by talking dreams, everyday happenings and the miracle of seeing the world. Where did that go?

In time we learn to conform and we learn to fear changes because what if they’ll bring rejection of some kind or even a raised eyebrow? Or something we cannot see but we know it’s there and we’re fearing it, simply based on the assumption that it is there… Ridicule. A word that hides a monstrous concept; a word that follows the two words we dread the most, ‘not enough,’ like a hungry predator ready to pound on prey that’s hurt already.

Children, growing, grow apart from themselves, simply because of that, some more than others… Like getting far into a forest we do not know at all, we are walking paths that take us further away from ourselves than ever. We seek to find ourselves yet in the process of it we build the tracks of a creature we struggle to recreate from bits of ourselves…

Here’s the thing though: If you’re not brave enough to reveal yourself, who will you be? Can you keep up being someone else? Will we have time to know who we are though before we will cross the point of no return?

What are you afraid of in saying ‘This is who I am?…’ That someone will say ‘Not interested’? What would their contribution to your life have been and theirs to yours anyway if it was based not on real people but fictional ones?

What is it that you’re after? To understand the reason of being here, you’ll have to see who you are, truly so.

Do you think yourself beautiful? Don’t run to the mirror. Features of the soul are never traced by the same pencil as the one tracing the contour of your face.

You see, I don’t know your face, the way your hair looks, or if you have any. Maybe your ears are floppy and too big, or maybe they are too small. There must be at least one part of you that you think fine and would not swap for a better one… Yet for the ones you don’t like… If you could, would you trade them for better ones? But then what will you get? Anything would be better you say?

It never is. Better applies to becoming, to growing. Better grows out of accepting the reality of today. Better can only grow from real and because we want to. Never because we’re pressured to.

Mirrors of inside and outside reflecting into each other…Which is the one you will choose to represent you first of all? If you will reject the image any of the mirrors reflects, you’ll reject both. And if you do, who will come to accept you, mirrors and all?

If you’d have a choice to be your friend, would you? Make it so. Let yourself be seen in who you are. You’ll be that much better simply because you allow for that.

You are more than your hair, or eyes or the contour of the face. There’s a whole lot of you behind every feature everyone sees.

Come as you are. Nothing else will ever make sense or keep your step balanced. That’s who you’ll carry through life, yourself. You. As you are.