Chimeras

I don't know if it was my generation, my family, or just my own psychic make up, but being myself has always been difficult.

A chimera by nature, some of my first memories are: of trying to impress my mother right after my second birthday by dressing myself in my new baby negligee, knowing that my father loved it when I told the how do you get down off an elephant joke, and realizing that my godfather loved it when he asked me if I wanted something and I said, "not peticicketdy."

I was aware of people and how they responded from the very beginning. I was also aware that things were good when other people were happy and not so good when I was the cause of unhappiness.

So . . . is being myself knowing how to please other people, or honoring my own feelings? Do I even know what my feelings really are as opposed to what they are supposed to be?

Obviously it should be a little of both, but as late in life as nineteen my grandmother informed us, "When someone asks how are you, just say yes, because they really don't care."

Life is smoother if it's all about other people.

On the outside

For a while.

I saw a quote that said “You either like me or you don’t. It took me twenty-something years to learn how to love myself, I don’t have that kinda time to convince somebody else.”

- Daniel Franzese

It has taken me longer than that and I'm still on the fence sometimes.