How strange to think I know myself in a basic way and then to find myself shifting in ways that are contrary to the stories I've told myself ABOUT myself before. . .
That is, I have always called myself a "loner," yet in the (almost two years) since I've moved, I've reached out to others with a constancy that is rather shocking to my formerly isolated self. In fact, someone told me that my "transparency" disturbed her.
Until recently, I have tried not to reveal myself, I have remained quiet, believing (as I'd learned from Carlos Castenada's Don Juan when I was a teenager) that those who tell their histories to others allow themselves to be trapped by others' judgments. Rather than freeing me, this idea actually kept me pent up and too-conscious of what others may or may not be thinking.
How freeing it is to simply say to oneself, "I am not responsible for what others think about me. All I can do is attempt to live and be as wholly myself as possible, trusting that I am unfolding and becoming who I am meant to become. . . always learning, always finding bits and pieces burned away, then regrown."
