Can you accept me the way I am?

“It’s been 31 years and she now look back thinking how some things can completely change over time. She was always the weird girl, with strange haircuts and weird hair colors. This will never change even though the society will always look strange to her. Who cares about what the society thinks?

She was the one starting working at an early age because she wanted to be independent. If her friends still received money from their parents to buy clothes, she was already earning her own money and buying her own stuff.

She was the one changing job after job so as not to be unemployed. She felt the need to support her family whenever they needed it.

She was the one who helped her sister raise the children. She felt like that was the right thing to do although sometimes she would have appreciated and extra hour of rest.

She was the one who went to visit her parents almost every night after work, even though she would have paid to get home as quickly as possible, take a warm bath and go to bed because the next day it will be exactly the same routine, the same fatigue.

She was the one who was going to have coffee with her friends although sometimes will feel that she does not have so many things in common with them, she will not want to participate in their conversation but she thought that a friend should not do this and refuse an invitation. Many times, she felt out of the place.

Starting work at an early age put the pressure on her to continue with this routine, she had to keep working, she has responsibilities as a sister, as a daughter, as a girlfriend and as a friend, although the work might not be the best paid and the schedule was not the best.

Helping her sister raise her children makes her feel like she has more responsibilities than she did. They were not her decisions, it was not her life even though it felt like, and it felt like her sister’s problems become her problems.

Going and visiting her parent’s although she felt extremely tired sometimes, made her more exhausted because there were problems after problems. This was endless. Their worries became her worries too but she could not change anything, and it was not in her hands to offer a solution to all the problems that were happening.

Being in a place, with people, where you feel that they do not share the same way of thinking, but quite the opposite, where you feel that you cannot really be you all the time and you are the strange person at the table, because of your way of thinking, the way you dress, the way you have your hair done, the way you express yourself, it just makes a person feel more and more jaded.

The upshot of all this: a couple of skin allergies, several medicine allergies, a list of countless health problems and the last one, but not the less important, a major illness requiring an operation. When she had to go to the hospital, it was easier for her to say what she didn’t not suffer of than what she had.

We all have a crucial moment in our life that makes us decide if we want to improve or decide to sink more. Her moment was when she was supposed to have the surgery. Some of us completely change the lifestyle and improve the quality of life, and some of us decide that it is better to get this way other’s people attention and decide that we should continue feel sorry for ourselves.

Someone with a strong desire to live, to enjoy life, to enjoy the people next to them, will not look for excuses and will always find a solution. She was one of them. She decided for herself that she wanted to live life to the fullest.

She decided from that moment that is good and helpful, sometimes, to be selfish and think first about what is good for you and then for others. She decided to treat the cause of all her problems, not only physical but also emotional. She began to inform herself, to read and to investigate and the first step was the acceptance of her destiny. Every headache has a cause, or you did not drink too much water, or you got angry by someone or a situation. Thus, began from her inner self and with this began her entire healing process.

If she felt she did not want to work so many hours, she then worked less. If she felt she did not want to help her sister because she was losing what little time she had to spend with her partner, she learned to say: “No” sometimes. This helped her to heal in many ways.

If she felt that she would rather spend the evening on her couch and read a book than visit her family, she stayed at home. If she felt that she was not in the mood to go out for coffee because she just was not interested in the conversation, she rather stayed alone than put herself in a situation where she did not wanted to be just to please others.

But changes are sometimes difficult to accept and when you sacrificed for others all your life and always said:”Yes”, once you started being the new version of yourself, some people find it very difficult to get used to. And all what her family and some friends wished her for her birthday was for the “old her” to come back, even though this meant being a sick person who could not enjoy life to the fullest.”

I am here right now, remembering the time I spent with my friend at her house. This is her story, not mine.

People form their personality in the first years of life and this is very difficult to change, that means that what you can change most easily is the mentality, the lifestyle, the behaviors, all with self-education and with the people around you.

But, once we start to change this, why is it so difficult for other people to accept us as we are now? And on the way you might lose people that you care for.

The only thing I want to emphasize is that sometimes we make the mistake of burdening our lives with problems, with issues, with other’s people concerns. And this, done in small doses is fine, but once the limit is crossed and affects our health, then we must be a bit selfish and think first if is worth the pain.

What is your story?

Version in Spanish: https://journeywithmada.com/historia-nr-18

Version in Romanian: https://journeywithmada.com/povestea-nr-18/