It is scary stuff to admit what you want. It terrifies me to state what I want without any flippant remarks or deprecation.

It seems wrong. Or arrogant. Or like tempting fate.

I feel as if I’m setting myself up to fail. But in reality, not being able to say what I want actually sets me up for failure more than any declaration of desire will ever do so.

Being honest to myself and to others is the first step to success OR failure. But never acknowledging it? Never allowing myself to name my yearning?

That for SURE is failure.

Any success when stuffing my dreams deep down inside of me, so tight and so small, would be accidental.

I do not want to be an accidental success.

I want to be a guaranteed success (although nothing in life is guaranteed). And my fear of not having my dreams ensured has me choosing the given of failure.

What kind of half-life is that?

For so long, I convinced myself that I don’t really have dreams. I equated desires with unrealistic expectations. I told myself that I was fine with how things were. That life is a daily capitulation. Being an adult was accepting my reality and that reality was another decade and a half of caring for small humans and then launching them into the world.

[clickToTweet tweet=”I have believed a lie. I equate pursuing what I want with abandoning & destroying my family. I have spent decades #lyingtomyself about what I really want because if I don’t want things, I can’t leave my family to pursue them. #fear” quote=”I have believed a lie. I equate pursuing what I want with abandoning and destroying my family. Thus, I have spent decades lying to myself about what I really want because if I don’t want things, I can’t leave my family to pursue them.” theme=”style1″]

…

My father was a man who constantly talked about how other people not as smart or talented or competent as he took his idea and made money from them. He would complain about the unfairness of lesser people succeeding and how we, his family, kept him back from his fulfilling his dreams.

Oh, he never said it outright in words; but we lived the bitterness of his thwarted ambition.

We lived it each day he chose to be away from us, trying to make it in Taiwan or China, living a life of freedom without the encumbrance of a wife and two children. We ate it alone, discarded, as he stole money, time, and love due us as his family while he squandered it all, cheating with other women and swindling investors.

He only came back to us because he was fleeing creditors and charges of fraud.

I had always thought he came back because he finally realized that we were worth staying for. It was not until decades later that my mother told me it was because he ran out of money – and thus – was abandoned by his friends.

He has never said he was sorry.
…

I have believed a lie.

I equate pursuing what I want with abandoning and destroying my family. Thus, I have spent decades lying to myself about what I really want because if I don’t want things, I can’t leave my family to pursue them.

They are not the same.

One of my deepest fears is that I am my father. That the generational curse of his anger, his abuse, his deceit and narcissism, that these traits will be my legacy with my children instead of love, kindness, and freedom.

I am not my father.

Working towards my dreams and being a good parent are not mutually exclusive.

[clickToTweet tweet=”I told myself I was fine with how things were. That #life is a daily capitulation. #Adulting was accepting my reality and another decade and a half of caring for small humans and then launching them into the world. #parenting #fear” quote=”I told myself that I was fine with how things were. That life is a daily capitulation. Being an adult was accepting my reality and that reality was another decade and a half of caring for small humans and then launching them into the world.” theme=”style1″]

Would I want this half-life for my children? For them to shrink themselves and live in the constant state of fear from which I operate?

No.

I want my children to live full, joyful lives, confident in their wholeness. I want to show my children how to seek – and ultimately live – a life they want or desire.

That they are worth it. That their hopes and aches and very selves are important.

That they are seen, heard, and loved BECAUSE of the core of who they are.

I guess it is time again to be brave.