Clandestine Confessions

Someone once told me he preferred my hair long.
To cut it would be like chopping off the trunk of a vehicle (his exact words).
“Why ruin what is perfectly fine as is?” he said to me while sitting in his car in my driveway.
A few days after that conversation I cut my hair.
Nothing drastic.
Just enough to make a statement that I would never sacrifice autonomy for approval.
I am highly reactive to any controlling and manipulative behavior.
Even if not intentional.
It is a reflex to experiences of my past.
I ended the relationship shortly after that incident.
(The hair was not the culprit).
The surest way to keep me is to set me free. Simply let me be.
Nobody has learned that one yet – or perhaps have yet choose to not walk in the wisdom.
–
When I returned to this person in desperation to be the “chosen” one – like a begging dog in a shelter with the clock ticking over its life (how deeply I ache for that Jenna) – I bought hair growth serum.
I was determined to make myself everything he desired.
Changing my body, my personality, my values, my dreams to match exactly who he wanted.
I was going to make this the easiest choice for him.
Four months passed of actively waiting for his decision.
Followed by two months of passively standing by.
I am single.
He is not.
The sad part of it all is the hardest aspect was not losing him but recognizing how much of myself I lost before realizing he was never going to have the courage to choose me as anything but the woman on the side.
But in the end, despite how it happened, we both appear to have received our happily ever after – him with the other woman.
And me with moving on.
–
There is a similarity with these two scenarios important to highlight – my decisions demanded the opinion of another before I made them.
Being based on what other people wanted…or didn’t want.
I never asked myself what *I* wanted.
Who did *I* want to be?
–
One of my favorite movie scenes is from “Runaway Bride”.
*Spoiler alert ahead*
Maggie Carpenter is at her kitchen counter discovering her favorite style of eggs.
Her choice having continuously been based on the preference of her fiancé at the time.
She always adapted herself to be the perfect match for each man, adjusting her interests to mimic his in order to please him. Having earned his acceptance at the expense of her authenticity – something she never learned.
So she ran.
Time and time again.
Knowing each man was only ever engaged to the idea she had created for them rather than the real her. Except for the final groom…he was the only one to truly understand her, but she didn’t yet understand herself.
So after her last wedding escape, she dedicated her energy to learning who she was.
–
I am convinced had anyone asked me to be their wife prior to the middle of 2021, I would have been a real world Maggie Carpenter.
And in a sense perhaps I already was, just without the ring.
I have gained a reputation with some for “abruptly” leaving when things no longer feel true.
(I put that word in quotations because what one would see as hasty was anything but. I physically endure for as long as possible what my emotions already ran from long ago. And then eventually an experience/event will make them come in sync, and I act.)
–
That thought strangely gives my heart much relief.
Because it is confirmation I am exactly where I am meant to be.
That everything happened how it needed to.
And that my choice to escape where I was had a purpose.
Because my “runaway” moment of my last relationship led me to run straight to my cross-country road trip – my period of rapid self discovery.
Where it was just me and only me. Detached from my “normalcy”, away from demands and expectations, deaf to opinions and blind to my past.
In which I began learning who I am, what my passions are, what my preferences are, the future I ACTUALLY want for myself.
(I even learned my favorite style of eggs – we can thank Magnolia Table in Texas for that one.)
–
Had I never left I would have never arrived.
Had I never arrived I would have never become.
Had I never become I would have never known freedom.
And with that I now know, if the day ever comes, I will not run from the one who understands me.
Because I too know myself…