“It took me a long time not to judge myself through someone else’s eyes.”

-- Sally Field

I've struggled, not with the roles society placed on me, but from finite sounding judgements my former partner would make on me. If anyone else had said those remarks, I would have thought "No, that's not what I am."

And I'm not talking abusive thoughts. They were reflections of what he thought someone from my small town would/should be like according to his statistical outlook on what being from a small mill town was like. I suppose my reaction was a reflection of my own sense of how much I disliked reflecting on my youth in my town. It was filled with bars, drinking and drugs. I'd lived two and a half full decades since that time which were filled with international, cosmopolitan, environmental, academic, entrepreneuring, athletic, successful experiences. I resented being pigeon-holed into a box that only reflected my teenage self.

I don't know why his words trapped me so. I felt misunderstood, hurt by his narrow view of me. But somehow I was stuck with his definition of me looming over my head, as if knowing someone thought that of me made it so.

~ Karen Lynn

“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”

-- Mother Teresa