Being Human

[caressa]

The main thing in life is not to be afraid of being human.

—Pablo Casals

For much of my life, the reason I used was because I didn't feel as though I didn't measure up. Always looking for some thing, person or place to make me happy and take me out of myself.

Heaven help me if I should be merely normal and be like everyone else. All those old tapes played and told me I should do this or that and there was a big fear of doing and saying the wrong thing. To err is human to make a mistake doesn't make me one. This was a hard concept for me to grasp because of the old tapes from my mother especially, "If you can't do it right, don't do it at all." "Let me do that, you aren't doing it right." "If you were not so stupid...," and the list goes on and on.

There were so many rules and thou shall nots, along with the should I, shouldn't Is, that I had so many mixed messages, I didn't know what was right or what was wrong. Often I bent them or broke them and rebelled, because I couldn't accept the human side of myself and often struck out in what I thought was self-defense.

Attachments:

[majestyjo]

I can accept my humanness today. It doesn't mean I like it.