I’m Sick of the “Appropriate” Version of Me
So I’m expelling it from my life
This month has kindly brought the realization that my 40 years on this earth have somehow been spent accruing outside opinions and auto-installing these beliefs into the very core of my being. How I should act, what I can be, things I’m supposed to want, how large I’m allowed to live, et-fucking-cetera.
It was all haphazardly stitched together from the input of every person I’d ever met, then thrown over my body like a cloak of suffocating invisibility. It was pulled so tight that I could no longer peek out from beneath without serious effort, even when safe at home and completely alone.
I won’t waste much explanation on how many of these limitations came from the garbage society regularly throws at women, as you’re likely well-acquainted with most of it. Suffice it to say they are attempting to keep us conveniently obsessing over smaller matters instead of overthrowing patriarchal bullshit. You know they fear the day we sync up and take them down.
The remainder of my behaviors were created by my perceptions of how other people had, or even may, react to my real self if I didn’t tread lightly or sufficiently hide my emotions. Why is a woman who cries when upset the problem, not the fact that we are routinely driven to frustrated tears?
