Labels

When I was little, my parents would turn on the lights when they’d wake me up in the morning. My eyes hurt and I covered them with my hands. I was told I was whining and to get out of bed.

As an adult, during an eye examination, the doctor casually mentioned that my pupils are abnormally large and take in more light than other people’s. I stopped him and asked him to explain more. He asked if lights bothered me and did I find myself turning lights off a lot. With all the lightbulbs turning on in my head I replied and said yes, I am constantly turning lights off. He recommended glasses that help remove the glare.

I wasn’t whining. I was in pain.

When I was little, we would wake up early to do family devotions. Reading the bible in the morning, I would make mistakes. I would slouch and try to lay my head on the kitchen table. My behavior was labeled as laziness and I was told to sit up straight and drink more water.

As an adult, I learned about Chronotypes by reading Daniel Pink’s book “When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing”. I played around with my morning schedule and learned that if I try to get up any time before 7am, my body just doesn’t do great. I feel sick and struggle to stay awake. I adjusted my time and no longer had to take naps in the middle of the day.

I wasn’t lazy. I was waking up too early.

When I was younger, I was terrible at math. In the 80’s, the way I learned multiplication tables was to memorize a chart that hung from the wall. I have always struggled with long-term memory and had to constantly go over the facts. Oddly enough, I understood most of the 7’s but struggled with everything else. Someone taught me how to work out the 9’s using my fingers. Otherwise, I was lost. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division were lost on me. Forget about fractions. I felt like it was all my fault. Kids called me dumb. The adults teaching me at the time dropped me from 6th-grade math to third.

As a teenager, I took algebra for the first time. The teacher was excellent and explained everything. I asked questions and gobbled equations up. I could use my calculator as much as I wanted. I followed the formulas. I watched what happened to the numbers and understood everything.

In college, a teacher demonstrated what happens with compound fractions. I almost cried in class. I understood what he was talking about. I didn’t feel stupid.

I wasn’t dumb. I have a different learning style.

Sometimes, I hear adults complain about how hard it is to be an adult and I laugh. Maybe, it was because I was so misunderstood as a kid, that growing up was a welcome. I was no longer under people’s scrutiny. I can read what I want to read and learn what I want to learn. Yeah, my body can’t handle Burger King anymore. So what? I would rather be able to spend my time in the world having the freedom to make decisions for myself then be young and eat onion rings. It’s a price I’m willing to pay.

But, do we afford others the same space we would like for ourselves? We think we know what’s going on with someone. We read a post, see them for a moment in the store, read a text, and we assume everything we think we know about that person. I don’t like being misunderstood. I deeply appreciate people who ask me questions when I make the decisions that I do. I explain and they understand. It’s a magical world to live in. And, I know that not everyone will understand. They don’t have to. I’m the person I have to go to bed with every single night. If I can’t face myself at the end of the day, then I need to circle back and rethink my decisions.

What is true?

Growing up, I was told I was a lot of things. Dumb, emotional, and whiny. I was thin-skinned and got my feelings hurt too easily. I needed to toughen up and stop complaining. I was too shy, I was too scared. I was annoying. I was too much of one thing and not enough of another. I was never enough. I grew up believing that there was something wrong with me, and if I could just find that thing, the one thing that would change everyone’s minds, I would be enough. I would be okay.

I spent years trying to chase that one thing down.

It took multiple layered life experiences to help me find my way.

At nineteen, I started listening to myself. Fresh out of high school, I wanted to to go Texas. Don’t ask why. I didn’t know. I’d never been there. I only knew I wanted to be there. I knew no one and nothing about the state of Texas but that is where I felt I needed to be. It took a year and a lot of poor life decisions on my part, but at 20 years old, I found myself, living in Texas, working at a Children’s Home.

At 21, I sat in the corner of the Children’s section of a Christian bookstore crying while watching “You are Special” by Max Lucado. The story tells of a puppet who lives his life constantly seeking approval from others while knowing he has no special talent. All day, the puppets put stickers on each other, stars for the talented puppets. Dots for the rejects. Only one puppet walked through the town without any stickers. The stickers didn’t stick to her because she only cared about what her Maker thought of her. And, to her Maker, she was special. So everything else didn’t matter. A store attendant finally found me and asked if I was okay. I said yes, dried my eyes, and left quickly. I still own that book.

In 2013, I attended a conference that prayed over everyone in the room. The speaker said he recognized that a spirit of self-rejection had power over some of us. I broke. In half. I cried and thanked God for helping me see this for what it was. Writing this now, I realize that self-rejection wasn’t the only player here.

In 2015, I signed up for a technical program called Code Louisville and learned Front-end Web Development. I learned quickly that if I didn’t ask all the questions, I would fall behind. I told myself that it was okay that I didn’t know what I didn’t know. This mind shift transferred beyond my work life and changed me forever.

There wasn’t one thing that could fix me because I wasn’t broken in the first place. I had believed what others had said about me. I spent years untangling all the lies I’d been told.

In my post “What It Will Take”, I quoted Maya Angelou. When people show you who they are, believe them the first time. I’d like to add another part to that. When people tell you who you are, don’t believe them the first time. Find some way to vet what people say about you before you take it as gospel truth. This is so hard to do as children, but as adults, we can do this. Talk to people who love you, who want the best for you, and those who see you as you truly are.

You aren’t broken.

You are enough.

Listen to yourself.

You have what you need.

You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.

You can find out who you are.

You can do this.

If my work brings you joy, and you’d like to support it, you can become a paid subscriber by clicking the button above. If a subscription is not your thing, you can support my caffeine addiction writing by clicking the button below! Thanks!

Written with Prophecy - Spiritual Healing Ambient Music - Sleep Relaxing Ambient Meditation in the background.