never apologize for being me

I am helping a friend out who is making a major change in his life. It’s something positive and all those around me are making me feel bad for helping him.

Yet the person I am helping is helping me too. I am learning a lot from him and about myself in the process.

I feel when a woman helps a man that people naturally assume its because she likes the man she’s helping, trying to advance her own career or wants something. Some times people do things because they are the right thing to do, they know how to help and want to help.

People are telling me I am being too nice with helping my friend out yet if they were in the same shoes they would take my help as well.

I wonder why people have to think so hard when people want to help others. Isn’t that what living is all about.

This is something I hear very often.

People say nice like it’s a bad word. Yes, I give with my heart. Yes I try to look at things from both angle and yes I will help a person whenever I can. I smile a lot (okay maybe too much) and I don’t try and let life get me down.

Where has all the love gone? Are we so afraid of helping one another that we very being nice as something wrong?

I grew up for part of my life a small town. A town where when you walk around people say good morning to you even if they don’t know you. Men still tilt their hats in respect to ladies. Young children say please, ma’am, sir and thank you. A place where you can leave your car and your home unlocked.

People shared food and helped each other out in times of need.

Now, everywhere I turn this attitude is considered weak, silly, too nice and wrong.

I can’t help but be who I am. I admit I tried to do things in a less nice way, but it didn’t feel right. Do you know how it feels when you put your sweater on backwards, don’t realize it and walk around all day feeling awkward? The sweater ends up feeling like a straight jacket. Tight, unforgiving and unmoving.

So this country girl living in the city will keep her ways no matter what. I just have to find a way to not grit my teeth ever time I hear the words “too nice”

I have had this goal on my list for almost a year now. In looking at it I realize in order for me to do the rest of the items on this list this should be first priority.

I’m thirty and for a good portion of my life I have been apologizing and hiding my true self. I didn’t want to upset others. I have always wanted to be accepted.

There was a time where I didn’t care about being accepted. I just went with the flow, did what I felt and as I remember had a great deal of success doing it.

Now I am a wife, coworker, daughter, sister and a lot of other things that cause me to reform to a version of what society deems proper. But over the last year I have been splitting at the seams. My gut is telling me there is more to this life if I would just be ME.

The me who trust herself completely, the me who doesn’t need the attention from others to feel loved or important and the me who will take a chance as long it doesn’t kill me or someone else.

And to take honesty even a step further, my life is stucking big time because of this. I have my goals, I am doing pretty good but I feel I can be more progressive if I drop the Suzie Homemaker, learn to put myself first again and let the other people live their lives as they please. Judge no one and don’t allow others to be my judge and jury.

I can still be these things to all the people in my life but on my terms.

I have started this process slowly. I have let my hair grow naturally, I dress more comfortably (no pulling at my clothes anymore) and I am weeding out the 80% of people in my life that is holding me back from improving the 20% of right things in my life.

I have a job that is damn near close to pefect. I love my team and the hours are perfect. I have the time and resources to get my side hustle going.

The only thing I have left to do is spend time with myself and love myself better. I have to stick to my guns, take care of me better and listen to myself more. This also means spoiling myself for a change.

I remember the first time I changed myself because of someone else.

I like this guy named Juan and when we first met I felt he like me too. We got to know each other a little better and our friends started hanging out with each other.

As time went on I developed a crush on Juan. To me he was the perfect guy-three years older than me (mature), smart ( in high school), and worked (independent). After our first few times seeing each other it was clear that we wanted to get to know each other better.

It was the first time I was head over heels attracted to someone. I was a tomboy at heart but was starting to get into my girlish side.

As time went on I tried everything I could think of to be his girl. Being his girl meant hanging out with him, him walking me to school and us going out to the movies. In my little teenage mind, I thought this guy could be mines if I tried hard enough.

Up until that time I never really tried to get a guy before, it just happened. But this guy, at the time, seemed worth the effort. And I always prided myself on getting what I want.

Since he was friends with guys his age and older it ened up being more of a game to him. One of his close friends said peer pressure kind of got to him and that’s why things changed. Dating someone younger than you was caused for ridicule depending on who they were.

And at the time I was so blind and eager to please that I would of done almost anything he asked to be called his girl. The funny thing was there was times where he was so not into me and then there were times when he wouldn’t let me out of his sight.

The other part of the problem was that we were really really good friends. We confided things in each other. And in many ways he was like a big brother to me. Had I stepped back and viewed the situation for what it was, I would of realized what type of relationship we had and how special it was as is.

So after much taunting by our friends he told me one day I was too young, too short, my hair was too short and I was too big to date. The words stung but given my personality (I liked to prove people wrong)I figured that thoes things weren’t hard to fix.

My girlfriends were going through the same issues, so we made a plan that it was time for a change and we were going to get the guys we wanted no matter what.

So over the course of a summer I changed up my entire game.

I couldn’t do anything about the young part so I read more and was able to hold more mature conversation with people my age and older. I changed the way I handled myself outside and with various types of people. I opened up more to meeting new people and at times was considered the leader amongst my friends. Learning how to play spades and card games put me at the table with the big boys.

I gained the respect of the elders because of my mannerisms and interacted with the “in” crowd on our block. And once that happened, my age didn’t matter.

At the time I was 5’8 and to me that was tall enough. I knew if I lost weight I would appear taller. I also dressed up more often and wore shoes and sandles with pumps or heels. I wore shorter skirts to add more attention to my legs so that it took away from my expanding thighs. Since I have long shapely legs, it gave the illusion that I was taller.

I had my hair braid in invisible braids to help grow my natural hair and slim down my face. I changed my hair color to give me a different look. At the time I had a thing for raven black hair. It added a year on my appearance as well as gave my complexion a more clear acne free tone.

During the entire summer I starved myself, went to the gym and worked the stairstepper for an hour a day, and increased my overall activity. I dropped 40lbs and a few dress sizes.

So to the pool at the end of the summer after hiding out for three months with the brand new me in a killer bathing suit and BAM: I was knocking brothers out cold with my new look.

So did I get the guy I wanted? Nope.

I got hit on by everyone but him. He dated some else (my friend) and in the end I realized that we were better off friends than anything else.

The funny thing is, when I went back to being myself and decided to devote my attention to other things is when I got him. When I stopped paying him attention and started getting it from others is when he decided I was worth his time.

And it was at that moment I decided that I would never go aganist myself again. Believe me, many have tried. I’m not being stubborn, I just know what works and what doesn’t work for me and my life. I have 29 years of experience in this subject.

I am open to suggestion. I am open to advice. I did learn some things from that experience that bettered me as person. But to do something so blindly desperate and only for the attention and approval of another, never again.

I realize I can’t be productive or happy when I am not being myself.

I call my mid and late teens my “Prove me wrong” years. It was the time in life when everyone in your life tries to “mold a.k.a change” you into what they feel society feels you should be. Being a female we lived by harsher rules. We have to sit quietly when inside we want to stand and fight. We have to wear skirts and dress when it more sensible to wear pants. I knew from early on I wasn’t going to be your every day female or teenager.

From age 15-22 years old I didn’t worry what others thought of me. Family, friends, co-workers, you name it. Either you loved me or leave me alone. This freedom gave me the power to be honest with others and myself. I took responsibility for my actions and could admit when I was wrong. But if I didn’t feel I was wrong, the debate would begin.

Over the years I have lost that young “fire” inside of me. There comes a time in every adults life when they think they aren’t acting responsibly or adult enough. How we want people to like us so that they will marry us, give us a job or keep us company. We want to feel normal and accepted.

I worry and feel guilty more often and sometimes wonder how others think of me. I wonder if my clothes make me look fat. All the things that I wouldn’t give a second thought were coming back to haunt me. I have become what I should have been rather than being who I am.

So how can I get back that “Prove me wrong” attitude? Take a closer look at myself and figure out is really me or me being nice. It’s dressing how I want and being comfortable. It’s me following my own career and life path even if no one else understands or agrees. It’s the power to tell other with a smile “This is who I am.”