I still remember the look of disappointment on my Textile professor’s face when I pulled out my final project to present to our class. That term we had learned how to work with our hands. We made our own paper, wove baskets, and made objects from wire and metal. My final project had taken hours. I’d hand-dyed and screen printed fabric in different colors and patterns and sewn it together to make a duvet cover.

It wasn’t what my professor had in mind. I think she wanted something more artsy, and less useful. I had tried that earlier in the term, though. I made lumpy, clove-infused paper that I ended up keeping for years hoping I’d find a way to use it. The basket I’d made looked like something from Dr. Seuss. I am deeply creative, but I wasn’t capable of the kind of art my professor wanted.

Now, in my own home, I can laughingly look back at that duvet cover, which I still use (as a cover for the old mattress topper we keep on our front porch for a reading nook/wrestling pad). I didn’t even know who I was in college in so many respects, but I still couldn’t help being me.

Even though I’m now well into adulthood and have a pretty good sense of who I am, I still have difficulty letting myself just be me. And at the same time, I find me being me in spite of myself.

Being me doesn’t mean forsaking personal growth or forcing people to buy what I’m selling. It does mean understanding what I’m made of and using my gifts instead of fighting with them.

It also means recognizing the negative patterns I tend to follow, and gently giving myself a nudge with a quiet word, “Girl, you’re doing it again. Proceed with caution.”

Like everything in life, it turns out this is a process. The biggest part of it for me has been learning to stop trying to live up to expectations I create for myself, or expectations I think are coming from others (The Chaplain has been known to protest, “But I didn’t ask you to do that!” when I tell him I was doing something for him).

It’s then that I need to pause and look to the Heavens for direction.

I don’t know if I’ll ever get good at being me. We have our whole lives for that. Sometimes it’s a source of endless frustration to know that we’ll be fighting these battles until death, and sometimes it gives me hope that I’ll make some progress before I reach the grave.