I am not an Angel
I learned as a child that in order to be loved I needed to be quiet, independent, well-behaved, disciplined, and attentive to the needs of others.
(What did you learn?)
I don’t remember being told to this, nor do I remember being punished if I did otherwise. But I absorbed these goals so deeply that I took them to be admirable truth.
This supposed truth was bolstered by the fact that these qualities helped me do well in a society that rewards these behaviors. As an adult, my “brand” — what it means to be a good partner, a good friend, a good worker, a good mother — included many of the behaviors I learned as a child. It was safe.
But something was lost.
In part, it’s that we are all so much more than the identities we assume and build in the human realm.
It’s also that our big uniqueness is a necessary gift to ourselves and to others. In this radically intertwined world our wholeness nourishes and inspires the same in others.
Spontaneous. Naughty. Mischievous. Rule-breaking. What else am I?
I am not an angel, and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself.
— Charlotte Brontë