Dismantling.
That’s what it feels like.
It feels like I am systematically going through who I am and seeing what works and what doesn’t.
I am parsing through 41 years of life and realizing how much of my life has not been lived on my terms.
I am realizing the number of different versions of me many people know.
In a weird way it feels like the only people who get the real me are the people that read these words.
Because I don’t filter as much.
Trust me, I still filter. Just not as much.
So far I have been writing in this series about things that have already happened. And now we are getting back into real time.
This is the shit I am going through today, in this moment.
This is the shit that turns my stomach in knots.
This is the shit that makes me question every step I have taken up to this point.
But this is the part that determines the future. This is the part that sets my path moving forward.
The death of the Representative.
The death of the false self.
The dismantling of a reality that does not hold true anymore.
So at the risk of sounding like a crazy person, I will tell you all what this process looks like.
I am looking at all of my relationships, and I am stepping outside of them and seeing what it is I do inside of that relationship.
Am I showing up as myself.
Or am I sending in the Representative.
Am I sending in “Mr Perfect?”
The uncomfortable truth is that as I do this I am finding out just how often I am sending the Representative instead of just showing up as myself.
Over the last year and half or so I have started creating boundaries and distance in some of my relationships where I don’t feel like I can truly just be myself, for whatever reason.
I have distanced myself from friends.
I have distanced myself from family.
I have distanced myself from work colleagues.
All in the name of allowing myself the space to just be who I am, without being afraid of disappointing people.
It has been some of the hardest work I have done.
And some of the most fulfilling.
And now I am at a tipping point, now is the time where I decide that disappointing people might not be the worst thing in the world.
I don’t know exactly what the future holds.
I don’t know what the next step is after this.
I don’t really know much of anything.
There is one thing I do know.
And it is what keeps me rolling forward, even though I feel like I have been running on an accelerated growth path since I started writing, and get afraid of burning out.
The one thing I know?
I’m going to come out the other side of this with no “Representative.”
And tomorrow, I’m going to try and paint the picture of what it could be.
Carry on.