22/45-Acceptance
Today was a day of acceptance for myself and others. Perhaps we didn’t choose what we had to accept, but life doesn’t ask you what you prefer, it hands you what it does, and then allows you to pick acceptance or not.
I have always tried my best, okay, maybe not as a kid but as an adult, however I try my best at whatever I am doing, and I have done so with the desire to excel. Recently I feel that I have done this all wrong, that I shouldn’t have done that on so many occasions, that I should have just done enough for others, and more than that for myself. I know what you may be thinking, what I am thinking, how selfish. But honestly, it seems that most people that are happy, are pretty damn selfish.
I was never unhappy as an adult the last few years, even in the toughest of times, and tonight it all made sense. You see, I went to the calling hours for my friend’s wife tonight. I sat there and listened to conversations people had, witnessed their emotions, said consoling words, stared at a person’s life summed up in photos playing on repeat, and you know what struck me most? This person had a lot of pictures of them smiling, enjoying life. And that was eye opening. I have no photos of me like that, but I was living, right? And then I immediately thought, no, I was fighting.
I fought another’s idea of what my life should be, I fought to teach my kids important things in life, I fought for my own identity, I fought to be heard and seen…to be accepted as me, and I was shown this evening in pretty bold letters, most people accept me for me, but so many do not. The people I have tried the please the most, accept/accepted me the least. I usually just keep going in life trying to be happy and doing my best, but I am pretty tired of doing that, I am tired of double standards and of me being accepting of people, but not of people accepting me.
My eldest daughter asked me tonight why I don’t say anything, and then you know what happened about an hour later? She flat out reminded me that I cannot be me with everyone, because there is something about me that people just don’t like. And I told her that I was okay with that, because I like me. I like me. I accept me fat, I accept me impervious, I accept me saying my truth, I accept me being too kind, I accept me being harsh with truth, I accept me anxious, I accept me dead calm, I accept me.
So how does this tie in to the death? She accepted her too, and that was the thing I admired most about her. Whenever I was around her, I found her self acceptance refreshing, grounding and calming, and I think mainly because I felt kindred to her in that. Self acceptance.
The Photographist Life 