Docile Stream

No matter what you say, no matter what you do, so long as you are living authentically someone will inevitably have something to say about it.

This has been a hard lesson for me as a people pleaser. To continue needing to be everything for everyone, you lose yourself — you become flat, average, mediocre, muddled.

Sure, maybe you are on OK terms with a larger swath of people, but you have diluted your essence in the process.

I am at the point in my life where I want to get to know other people at a soul level without having as much of a revolving cast of characters.

I -will- phrase things in ways someone doesn’t like or reads into with alternate intent. I -will- be weird and awkward — too quiet, too loud, hypocritical, uncouth. I -will- be hard to understand, sometimes withdrawn, sometimes a bit too curious.

I will also be a support system, a solid ear, a (small) kick in the rear, and an occasional snarky tease.

I am surely still internalizing criticism to even feel the need to say this. But I know my heart and that’s always all that matters.

I’m seeking more. Not everyone will meet my energy. I won’t meet everyone else’s energy. And that, truly, is beautiful, because our differences are what make the world so great and diverse. Trying to appease everyone in all ways is the antithesis of diversity.

Why are we, as women, so trained to make excuses? Why is the energy one of oversharing and over-explaining?

I see this time and again as a leader of a group made up of mostly mothers. But I don’t see men doing this, only women.

We pad everything to soften any potential forthcoming blow. We spill forth a lot of extra verbiage to create a greater space between our needs and feelings and the person receiving them. We inch in with “I’m sorry, but…”

This is a uniquely female trait. But, as a fellow female, I’m asking us to stop. Pause before communicating. Share what’s important and true and ditch the rest (or save it for your diaries and bitchfests with friends).

Become so deeply at peace with “no” being a complete sentence.

“No, I can’t make it.” “No, I’m not interested.” “No, that doesn’t work for me.” “No thank you.” The end.

I love connecting people.

It’s a drive and skill that I’ve come by only truly since becoming a mother, which I find humorous considering how shy and awkward I was virtually entirely up until that time, and even during the first few years of Aden’s life.

It has since become a passion.

When I shot photography professionally (you don’t know how hard it was to remove the quotations surrounding that word — imposter syndrome in full effect), I wrote about how connection was the best word I had found to describe my work.

But now I can see that connection is something I encompass on a greater scale.

I’m not saying my life is devoted to connecting others. I’m not a matchmaker nor anywhere near as involved in my community as I could be. But if I see an opportunity to bring people together, or to alert people about an opportunity, I definitely will go out of my way to share that awareness or try to bring people together.

Little hermit-y Claire is still in there. I get burned out easily in social settings and am still socially awkward. And yet — I fully own this role that I take on and acknowledge that it isn’t something most people like to nor are drawn to do.

So I will embrace and embody my connecting nature. Celebrating our gifts and traits can feel like ego stoking, but our variations in abilities and passions is how we find spaces for teamwork and being good community leaders and supporters. Proudly stoke that flame!

I almost deleted this photo.

I took more than 500 photos across two days at the beach, and when I looked at this photo, as I rushed to cut down that number before sharing a batch of the images with my family, it felt awkward.

But — I accidentally rotated it. It was an unintentional move on my part. So I rotated it again so that it was upside down.

And then I loved it.

I will tell you, all of the best things in my life have come from happy accidents. I wouldn’t say I have never worked for anything, because I know that isn’t true. But so much has shown itself to me through overshooting, goofing around, being in the right place at the right time, etc.

Even this trip was a last-minute choice — to tag along with my sister and her family.

When I am just living my life and not stressing over the details, that’s when I find the greatest pockets of beauty and joy.