hindrance.

I am convinced. It's somewhere close to the great hindrance of human nature. It's that voice, nagging voice, that stays with us throughout our lives. I don't think it goes away, we just learn, hopefully, over time, how to manage it better.

My mother is a spectacular woman. One of the most giving people I have come across in my life. One of my favorite places to see her is in the company of her near-lifelong friends, the ladies that have known her since she was an awkward sixth grader, when she thought that the people in the small town she was relocating to rode their horses to school. There is no pretending when these women get together. They know too much about each other to be anything that they aren't. It's the environment that she is, arguably, most herself. And when one of these audacious friends says something that touches too close to home, or that catches her a little off guard, her in jest response that she also really means is, "shut the hell up". I have heard this phrase my entire life, and I hadn't really ever had any use for it, until now. 

I was having coffee with some friends the other day. I am currently unemployed, and I have found it enjoyable, if only for a week, to pretend that in life, jobs and income and responsibilities are some of those optional things in life. In light of that, brunches at eleven in the morning, coffee around three, and drinks in the evening, when the sun goes down, have added texture to this game I have been playing. In the midst of the game, good conversation is had, and one sentence that was said during the coffee conversation struck me funny then, and has stayed with me for days. "I am able to be myself." 

This, to me, is not good. An "ability" to be oneself. Someone somewhere giving you or I permission to be who we actually truly are. What would the world be like if it were full of people that weren't just able to be themselves, that weren't waiting for someone to tell them that they were pretty Okay, but rather rolled out of bed in the morning and said, "damn, it's good to be me."

And it's this voice, the one that may sound like your constantly disappointed father, when he told you all of the ways you actually mowed the yard wrong, instead of a simple thank you...or of your pastor, who convinced you somehow that God was disappointed in your humanness, your tendency to fail or mess up or give in to something you had always been told was wrong, and that in order to please Him, you must not do any of those things, ever. It could be the voice of a boss, or your own alter ego, or perhaps just a little devil that sits on your left shoulder, when the angel is nowhere to be found. Regardless of the dress or mannerisms or tone that this voice takes, I am, again, convinced. It's in all of us. It flares when we lose our temper and revert to childish ways, or when we pull out in front of someone, accidently, and they honk at us, and then flip us off. It flares in our relationships, when someone declines an invitation, and we somehow hear that we are actually pretty unlikeable as a whole, and not much fun to be around ever, or when we come up against really successful people, and hear them telling us, of course, how much of a failure we are. 

And it's this same voice that makes us believe that being ourselves is appealing, but not realistic. That being who we truly are is desirable, and something to aspire to, but not what would be best for humanity as a whole. And this is why I have found my mother's phrase so very helpful, because, despite my glowing personality and charm, I am not immune to this voice. It's just that, after years of the voice being the only thing I heard, I began to recognize it a little better.  And when I do, I borrow the wisdom of my mother and tell it to "shut the hell up."