My Britches

This morning I was thinking about all the things I've been taught about not being big. When I was a girl, I'd often hear things like"Don't get too big for your britches!' and "Who do you think you are?" (Actually, I heard those exact things.) When I was in elementary school my parents would often tell me, "Don't be a Philadelphia lawyer." I wasn't completely clear on what that admonition was all about (I was, after all, like 8) but I got the gist; it meant don't argue, don't question, just accept things.

I learned my lessons well. To this day I've been terrified of doing or saying anything that might possibly construed by anyone (strangers, friends, passersby) as "being too big for my britches." I've literally been terrified of seeming not only arrogant, but its little sisters: ambitious, confident, assured, self-possessed. The line between feigning smallness and feeling smallness had become completely blurred for me. I knew, KNEW, that to get along, to be liked, to be not disliked, I had to make myself small. At the very least smaller.

No more. I'm done. It's still a big part of my psyche. It's still my default response, my go-to emotion, my comfortable way of navigating the world. But I'm interested in being myself. I'm ready to dame up. Yeah, it takes me out of my "comfort zone," WAY out, but that's where I aim to go.