It's Not Bad Behavior per se, just an Awkward Match

Knowing who we are takes time.  How much time?  When do know that we have arrived?  I have spent my life thus far trying to accommodate, bend and BE what I think others expect me to be.  It is exhausting to say the least and equally frustrating because what others expect can change from one moment to the next.  

To answer the question of WHEN, it comes in a moment.  It's standing on the receiving end of a communication from someone and realizing that what they're saying isn't about me at all.  It is purely about them as they utter unflattering sentiment about my so-called character "flaws."  

It comes over a matter of months, realizing that the carrot dangling before me will only ever be dangling and not eaten.  It's letting go of the attachment to position, title and advancement. 

It comes after years of thinking there is something to fix in myself so someone else will accept me only to learn this week that this person never ever ever wanted to be married or have kids and resents that he "allowed himself" to be talked into something he never really wanted.  Seriously?  I mean... I guess this isn't a huge surprise.  I acutely recall how resistant he was to the idea of anything conventional, but he did come around eventually, right?  Did he agree to convention just to make me happy?  


Perhaps this was the undercurrent of our relationship, running in the background all that time.  If someone still tells themselves "they never wanted a family," doesn't that create an awkwardness or a distance... an impenetrable barrier to relating? And to think I've been beating myself up feeling guilty for "throwing in the towel."  There was nothing to throw the towel in on I see now.  

They say knowing who we are takes time.  Trusted friends and advisors have uttered this epitaph over the decades and it seems I have finally caught up with it... not needing to hear it again just knowing I am here.