Independency Issues

Over the past year I've grown into myself. I feel as if I better understand who I am as a person, and I am comfortable in my own skin instead of feeling as if I should conform to society's standards.

It's exhilarating. I have had no greater life experience than realizing I only have to ensure my own happiness, and more than likely the happiness of those close to me will follow. I don't have to tap dance for others, and I never will again.

In a sense I think that was what my mother had been attempting to teach me all those years I lived with her when I was young, but in a much more negative approach. She would say, "Sarah, you can only depend on yourself; never depend on a man. You'll understand one day that you're the only person you can trust."

I thought then how depressing and contradictory she had been in saying that. She was quite obviously always down, melancholy, and she had spent a majority of her life depending on men emotionally and financially. In fact, if she could not rely on the income of her current husband, she would have no place to live. Also, she's put her dreams, heart, and aspirations into the hands of this guy, and he's in turn helped to isolate her from her entire family, and prevent her from making any friends or acquaintances outside of him.

I get it now though. Her words weren't so much this is how I made it in life, but more of a bitter I wish I had been this way, because look where I am now. Without recognizing it was happening, merely having her as a mother has forced me to learn how to depend on myself and become independent very quickly.

I started paying my own bills when I was sixteen. I moved into an apartment when I was seventeen, and had no paper trail leading to my parents. I bought my first coordinating bedroom set as well as a brand new laptop when I was eighteen. I'm twenty now and I am financing the nicest, newest car I have ever owned. Doing all this is more difficult than it sounds having only worked in food service, and coming from a poor family.

I don't know if this is admirable, but I know how to detach myself in relationships if I feel unsatisfied or become uninterested, or if I get the impression my partner feels that way. I mentally and emotionally prepare myself for the worst, and disallow myself from being hurt. In the past I would rather end a relationship than confront my boyfriend about it and work things out. I heard "engagement" once and ran for the hills. I'm not afraid of commitment in the least, but I knew it wasn't right then, or even for the next couple years, at least.

I don't want to be like that anymore.

I want the opportunity to become emotionally invested but still retain my identity and ferocity and individuality and independence.

One important lesson my mother has taught me is not to be like her. I don't need men. I don't need support from anyone else. I don't need a leg up, I can help myself. (One of my first phrases as a child was "by-self!") But I don't reject any of these things, because that is how women become lonely, self-loathing creatures. I know that if or when I lose everything I've come to care about or for, I will still remain to pick up the pieces and carry on.