Embrace Your Grown

 Six months before my birthday,   I started feeling a little different from the inside.. deep within. Those of you who are reaching milestones may know what I mean. Kind of  like the developmental charts we have for babies..milk to solid food. creeping to crawling.. 



 I felt a change......a shift. .....I coined it ........Ownership! 

Not home ownership ... car ownership ..designer bag ownership, this was not material in nature even a little bit  but. rather .....
Ownership of my life... on my terms....... My  Stage...My Story......My Life...YASS!
 A "I don't really care how you feel or take this but ___________ "attitude.

 A " Well, that is not quite the look I am going for but I have a plan and am fabulous anyway" attitude.

A" My time is better spent doing  X (fill in the blank with anything.. taking a bath, feeding the homeless, putting my kids to bed,  painting my toe nails, A girl's night in the city!  anything but that) attitude. 

This feeling of ownership sprang up in situations where I least expected it. It was almost Euphoric.

Areas where I would naturally acquiesce due to some level of  loyalty for whatever reason,
 "No!" or a "No, I will not be able to! " became so much easier.

 I felt like Steve Urkele,  "Did I do that!"

 Each time I asserted myself, a shackle to my invisible chains of people pleasing, looking for people's approval about my own life choices and self deprecation seemed to break and I began to move closer to my own emotional freedom. If you had asked me prior to this "new awakening" I would have said I had acquired this type of  freedom when I turned 18 and left for college.  

I, a prisoner who did not realize that she needed to be set free like the people depicted in Plato's Allegory of the Cave.  I began to  finally see the light.   I was alarmed at first.even scared that my new found "ownership"  would be off putting , should I retract my statement, cover up, make up something... a little lie to keep the peace.
 


 I have been an executive for many years, so I would not say that I was afraid of asserting my position in the boardroom but in areas of the heart.. family, friends and even to myself, I struggled like so many other Strong women do.

I sat with my sister- in- law at my 40th Birthday party and she said, "You feel different don't you?" and finally I realized that I was not alone.It was an  'AHA' moment like Oprah says.  My sis-in-law understood and I understood. She laughed. We took a shot of something strong and the merriment continued.

 This was one of those moments in life when you do not learn the secret until you join the club like a sorority, Mommyhood or Wifedom.