Being Who I Am.

A much admired coworker said to me today, "You know what I love about you, Kendra?"

I looked at him.

"You are your own person. You're different. Not like everyone else." He went on to tell me that that was what first attracted him to his girlfriend...that she was different than other people, and didn't care what others thought.

I have always known that that was an attractive quality to me, and that it was supposed to be an attractive quality to other people, but I didn't know that it WAS an attractive quality.

I wish I could be even more like that. I have my own sense of humor...my own likes and dislikes...and that shows. But I care too much what other people think about me. Even if it's just because I have a need to be on top, I want other people to know how wonderful I am. That sounds really conceited, but it's true. I just want people to think I'm spectacular and as shrewish as this sounds, to be superior to them. It bugs me to death when people think I am somehow lower than they are, and I go out of my way to prove to them that I am not.

So when my friend said that to me, it got me thinking...and I came to an important realization.

It really and truly honestly does NOT matter what they think. There are some people whose opinions I am never going to change. Mr. Jerkface is always going to think I'm an innocent, naive little twit. Mr. Dud is always going to think I'm jealous of his girlfriend and desperately want to be with him. Mr. Tyrant is always going to see me as nothing more than another female for him to dominate. All of these are idiotic assumptions, and not worth the time it takes to fret over them!

My friend at work is a very, very special person. I haven't known him for very long, and already he means a lot to me. He is one of those people whose opinions count...and he seems to think a lot of me.

I have friends that love and care about me. I have family that live with me day in day out and still like me for who I am. I don't need to prove to the chauvinistic pigs that I'm good enough to be a man. Their opinions mean ZERO, and they are no longer going to bother me:-)

I am my own person.