So many facets make a human being, right? So many things have informed our development and contributed to how we see ourselves and how we want others to see us. We have a sort of unspoken ideal self. We all create the person called "me." Wrapped up in our own creation of this ideal person are varying amounts of kindness, goodness, strengths, insecurities, damage, biases. The underlying things that make us identify as one kind of person or another.
    From childhood we see others and take pieces from them, creating this ideal self. We strive to show others and OURSELVES that this is who we are. So much so, that we sometimes tend to lose touch with all the things that actually formed that idea in the first place. The person we see as ourselves is not who we truly are. Stay with me here.
    We all know a narcissist or two, right? We've seen how they insist on their view of themselves at all costs regardless of who gets hurt or damaged in their wake. They admit no wrong, blame others for anything that doesn't paint them in a perfect light, all just to fit their narrative. The world and other people owe them something because they are uniquely above all others. But that's not who they are. Narcissists are an extreme example of someone totally refusing to dive into the things that made them see themselves as as so flawless to begin with. As a result, so much damage is done and they never even get a chance to know who they ACTUALLY are. Such a sad waste.
    We innately know there is a difference between who we want to be seen as and who we ARE. And it is the source of so much needless suffering. I've found recently in exploring that idea of who I am to me, that I am in fact, much more complicated and dynamic than I've been giving myself credit for. I asked myself, why is it so hard when I do something that isn't like this ideal person I've created? Why do I beat myself up over every mistake? Why do I look at myself in pictures and think how awful I look or stay up at night wondering if something I said may have rubbed someone the wrong way? If I don't win, why do I feel like I've LOST?
     I submit to you that it is because in my commitment to see myself and be seen as this ideal, I lose touch with what made me create her in the first place. This ideal woman, she was created out of both light AND darkness. The shadowy parts of ourselves can teach us to appreciate and strive for that ideal, but failing to realize the ideal is arbitrary is where suffering enters the picture. 
     When we remove the burden of always having to be something, we actually release the ability to see our real selves, and become more comfortable with who we actually are without having to hide from our mistakes. Of course I still beat myself up over my mistakes-it is one of my many flaws- but I am realizing now that those mistakes are only creating a chance to grow and to be a better human. We evolve into more than any arbitrary ideal could ever be. 

This is an excerpt from the Epilogue of Murphy Road.  Thanks for reading.

   I am nothing if not a work in progress. The more I learn about this life, the more I realize how much I don’t know. Every time I feel I am a master of something, I am given a sweet life-lesson about why I am indeed not a master of whatever thing I might have been feeling I perhaps might be. Life, for me, has been one giant lesson in humility. A lesson learned by a long and large series of increasingly significant mistakes - each adding to the sum of my humility and sense of humor which, I have no doubt will continue to grow until I am dead. 
    All that to say this: Murphy Road took place at a time I thought I knew about the nature of love, suffering and maturity. Then when I wrote this book I thought I knew much more than during this struggle and so could speak intelligently about it. Then when I edited repeatedly each time I thought I knew something more.  And now - after another decade of turmoil, joy, grief, laughter and hardship - I realize that while my understanding of the nature of familial love -what it is to suffer and how to gracefully handle life- is fathoms deeper than it was at the time of these events. I still have so much more to learn about all these matters of the soul.
     Murphy Road began as a journey in healing for me. I needed to address my pain and the demons of my past that were constantly informing my present. No one is exempt from suffering. We all have that in common. I do not pretend my story is the hardest anyone has ever had. Not by a long shot. But I DO know we are all in this together. We must always strive to collectively remember this. And in the telling of things and stories - in the sharing of the muck, we can heal one another and find connection in the suffering. Even find the beauty in it.   
Please share if you find this resonates. xx Fonya