Love me, Like me, Hate me, Reject me

I started this blog months ago with visions of writing all of my thoughts and wise words to share with the world only to realize my huge fear of letting anyone in to see the real me.

I am not a neat little package all wrapped up with a bow. My paper tears, wrinkles, and sometimes runs short. Bow...what bow? it must have fallen of in the car.

I am not the prim and proper little girl with a frilly, lacy dress and good manners. Frilly, lacy dresses ITCH and good manners tend to be for someone trying to sell you something while trying to make you feel warm and fuzzy.

I am not the sophisticated, well-spoken, demure woman of God I thought I should be. I have challenging questions, thoughts and revelations that make me and everyone else uncomfortable. I have said 'crap" from the pulpit in church, and people are lucky I didn't say worse.  I love God and He loves me, but we sometimes have words and it's not always pretty.

I can be all of the above things if I have to be, but it is hard work that ends up leaving me feeling tired, empty and alone with a very real  "me" that no one really knows.

Honestly, I am a mess. I am 43 years old with screwed up hormones, an empty nest, an identity crisis, and a sack of stories I am afraid to tell for fear of the back-lash. I have spent so many years trying to say and do the acceptable things so that no one would "talk" about me, but I found out they talked about me anyway. I have worried when it seemed some people did not like or accept me no matter what I did, and then I realized I didn't really like the ones I was worried about that much anyway.

I know you aren't supposed to not like people, and I know people say you can love them but you don't have to like them. That is a bunch of bull. It is terribly difficult to love someone you do not like, so stop trying to be so spiritual about it.  Maybe it isn't about liking or not liking people as much as realizing who you should and should not let have serious influence in your life. Maybe just maybe it is ok to have different levels of relationships in your life with different people. Maybe it is ok to have boundaries and to make choices on who to allow on the property of your life.

So this is me trying to just be me. Love me, like me, hate me, reject me; that is up to you. I need to be myself regardless of the outcome. I have to start loving me. I have to start accepting me. It ultimately doesn't matter if anyone else does.