RadicallyYourself

Mastin Kipp's blog, The Daily Love, caught my eye this morning.

You know, because when a guy named Mastin has nurturing life wisdom for you, you need to at least find out what he has to say.

And tonight, when I snuggled up with Little to watch Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, I was reminded of it again. The story of the Smart Girl who feels like she has to act stupid so people will like her always gets me Right Here.

A blog post for another day.

In any case, Mastin's thought for today: Be radically yourself and let the chips fall where they may.

Altering who you are in order to make someone else like you isn't fair to yourself, or to the other person. Pretty obvious, right?

Ah, but Mastin goes a step further. It's not just a matter of not lying about who you are or pretending to be someone you're not. He recommends being radically yourself. "Open up, be a dork (yes, I am projecting), be a little crazy, be sweet, kind, generous and all those things you wish to have in someone else." Celebrate if you're rejected for being yourself - the person who rejected you wouldn't have appreciated what you truly had to offer anyway. "The right person will stick, but only if you have the courage, clarity and self-love to let go of the wrong one."

Difficult, but true. It was no accident that Savageman and I picked Billy Joel's Just the Way You Are as our wedding song. It was important to us that we knew exactly what we were getting - that we knew the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of each other, the things on which we could agree, and the things on which we would never agree. It isn't always pretty to look at, but at least we can say our eyes have been open.

Knowing that someone loves and accepts all of you and not just the parts that look good or mesh with their own ideas - and choosing to know and love and accept them as well - is a whole other dimension of friendship. It's a huge risk. But honestly, life is too short to settle for less.

Feeling blessed tonight to have the people in my life who love me for the whole, quirky person I am - and who know I love them just as completely.

(Y'all know who you are - mwha, mwha, mwha!)

XO