Declaring Your Independence

“Independence - is loyalty to one's best self and principles, and this is often disloyalty to the general idols and fetishes” - Mark Twain


I remember I was in 8th grade, or maybe even High School, before the message actually sunk in that the 4th of July (in the United States anyway) wasn't the day the colonies won their independence from England, but rather the day they declared it.

I've been thinking a lot about that over the past few days, how we have to have the intention first that we want independence from something that's holding us down (financial worry, heartache, etc.), then we need to declare our intention (though perhaps only to ourselves), and then finally we can gain that independence if we have enough determination and focus and in many cases, sheer grit.

But we face a lot of monsters on such a journey, and the monsters within us can be just as powerful, or more powerful, than the ones we face on the outside world. I know this has certainly been the case for myself. I spent much of my life assuming I just didn't have the energy to go for my heart's desire in any sort of passionate way, that first I had to focus on what my parent's and the media and the world was telling me was important (having status in the business world, looking great, and things of that ilk).

And so I did. At 21 I became a very diligent workaholic in an uncreative industry I really disliked but I moved forward with as it allowed me to speak Italian every day (which I had gone to school for) and because my mom's boss got me the interview. I got the job, and desperate to have my parents proud of me, and desperate to feel legit (as I'm sure many young people feel, heck many of us feel) I hung in there and wracked up the years.

Choosing a different path, a more independent, creative one for me has been a long process. The first step I made was to keep writing. I have kept a journal very diligently for over 25 years. The second step I made was to marry a creative man because I simply didn't think I deserved, or could afford, just to be a creative person on my own. What I know now, which I didn't know then, is that if you earn your way into a relationship you'll never stop paying. Romantic relationships aren't earned, they just are, but at the time it was the only way I knew how to be, and his talent and my ideas seemed like a huge lifeboat of possibilities. And for many years they were.

It's easy to regret a marriage that went wrong, especially one that in hindsight you can see the cracks in the foundation of from the very beginning, but I've decided not to regret my marriage because we did the best we knew how to do at the time, and we created a company and pieces of art that I'm very proud of. Yes, I truly do wish I could have relaxed more then, and owned with some grace what we were making happen rather than being frantic and still wanting desperately to feel important and right in my choices. I couldn't see any shades of gray back then. There was constant tension between my ex-husband and myself over the fact that I was the one who recognized his talent and came up with the idea for his company (though while married it was supposedly "our" company, but that was a bone of contention as well) and supported and cajoled and challenged him to live up to what I knew in my gut he could do.

Now I'm learning to support and cajole and challenge myself to live up to the talent I feel I hold within. It's not easy to do, it's scary, it feels arrogant at times on a whole different level, but still the siren calls from within...do your own thing, declare your independence.