I'm not that girl anymore

People are always saying to Be Yourself.  But nobody ever stops to take into account the fact that I'm not merely one person.  I am the me when I am at work.  And the me when I'm with my parents.  There's the me when I'm on a first date and the me when I know it's the last.

And anyone who wants to claim there is only One True You is a big fat liar.
And I've a mind to throw my martini in their face.

But it is oh so very delicious.


How then, I ask, am I to be this self that is Myself, my True self and dismiss the intrusive versions that claim to be the real me in those moments but are rather faulty impersonators?

And if I am so very layered and complex why does no one else understand or accept this?


I am many things.

I am both selfish and selfless.
I am stubborn and still forgiving.
I am independent yet needy.
I am aggressive and...yep.  Just aggressive.

I love you and I hate you.
But you already knew that.


I don't think most people give me the freedom to be who I actually am.  I think they want me to be who they feel I am, who they need me to be for them.  People don't even realize that they develop these expectations of me and when I change, when I no longer appear to be the way they've known, the way they've always understood it does more than confuse them.  It upsets them.  They don't like not understanding.  They need to know.  They need to know who they are in relation to me.  And when that shifts it is only the strongest relationships that endure.

I knew a friend who I'd always interacted with a certain way.  We had our own language, our own playful way of communicating and we understood one another.  And one day he changed the rules.  He shifted.  But I hadn't shifted with him.  And I was the one feeling unsure about who I was now to be.  I'd been cast in this role and now all of a sudden I'd been recast.  But no one gave me the new script.  So I was kind of at a loss.

And I thought about the friends I never talk to anymore.  And the old loves who couldn't stay friends after our stories closed.  And I wondered if the real reason people stay or people go is because either they can't accept how I've changed or I won't allow them to.

And I thought how exhausting it was to always feel like what others saw was what I must be.

So I decided to stop letting everyone else direct my story.
And I decided the only real Me was a girl who was always changing.

And those who liked all that now was and was no more?
They were more than welcome to stay for the second act.

Rumor has it it'll be swell.