More Than Words.

Once in a while I realize that hope is not enough. Hoping that people will change, and grow, and learn to accept you for who you are without attempting to revise history or judge things they don't understand... such hopes are ultimately futile, because we can't ever change other people. We can't even change how they see us, once they've chosen to view us through a particular lens.

The closest I can come for today is this: THIS is what one-day-before 29 looks like.


And this is what my kids look like.



See all the smiling? This is because they have a mother who loves them, and who accepts herself as she is, follows her own heart and her own conscience. I am happier and healthier in my life NOW than I have ever been before. It took a long time to get here, to begin to learn not to be burdened by trying to squeeze my square peg into a very narrow, round hole.

To love someone unconditionally means, really, to accept them. To say that you love someone and then try desperately to change them, or to tell them who they are (even if the description is only accurate in your own head) is NOT love. Control and Love are not synonymous. Loving someone does not mean attempting to make your own vision for their life a reality... it means doing your best to understand THEIR vision for their best life, and helping them achieve those goals. Even if they're not the goals you hoped for, and even if you don't understand why.

Tomorrow I will be 29. But I'll still be me, and maybe one day I will be able to aptly articulate exactly who that is.