Overcoming who you are

One thing I know about myself that a lot of people don't understand is that when I was young, I was who everyone wanted me to be. Little of it was "me". I was caring, I craved love, but everything else was expected of me.

And a few years later, I became a "girlfriend." That's all I was Smith's girlfriend. Anything he didn't like, he conned me into changing. Everything he like, I learned to like. I became someone different. I always thought that if I gave everything love would last. You fight the big battle to win the princess (in my case the prince), I expected that meant becoming who he wanted. and I had to learn the real truth is that you can't give up yourself. Because someone should love the person that you are. But at the time, I was young and naive.

God, you wouldn't be able to recognize me if you knew me back then. I was like my sisters and in some cases worse. I was a girly girl when I was expected to be and a sports fanatic when dad needed me. I helped him fix cars with moans and groans because I was a "girl" and it was expected of me, I played pretend for hours. I wanted to be loved. That was always my goal. I wore pink and cared about makeup and wanted to do anything I could to be loved. Change my hair, change my life. My whole goal had always been love. I don't know why that was such a drive for me. Was it the books I read? Was it the life I lived, why did I care so much about love. I know people that don't daydream about that like I did. I would create love in my mind before going to be and have Barbie marry ken because they were in love. Disney be damned because that was all I cared about. And to be honest, to this day I struggle with understanding people who don't care about love. What drives you then? Work? School? I was and always will be a hopeless romantic.

Mike changed all that about me, our experiences changed even more. When he broke up with me. I was no longer that girly girl. I was no longer his girlfriend. So I didn't know who I was, what I liked or where to start.

I spent weeks, maybe even months sewing together the person I wanted to be. Screw who I was, screw what I had been through. I knew I had to change. I had to look at the qualities inside myself that I defended, the ones he hated. I was emotional, I was irrational, I was always trying to make things better and I was stubborn. But I liked all that about myself. I was emotional because I cared about everyone, irrational because I think in different ways, always working on achieving greatness in myself and in a relationship, I am stubborn because I am passionate. These are things I kept about who I was and what I KNEW to be me. Then I changed, I was somewhere in between a girly girl and a tomboy and in some ways I always was but it didn't feel that way. Not when hanging with the guys. I was "the girl" so I became one of the guys. In my head, guys are strong, they are tough and I needed that shell. I needed to be strong and tough for whatever life had in store for me. I was done being dainty. I liked videogames, thats one thing I took away from Smith, and the ability to debate. I became great at getting my way (because I learned from the boy that could sculpt my own thoughts into his). I stopped believing in religion and kept believing in love and kindness and morals. I walked away with better music (in my opinion), better memories and better stories.

I became the person I wanted to be. I became the Ashley you know today. The crazy part is that I wasn't always her. I mean, maybe I was, but not in my head. In my head I was the girly girl (and not a very good one at that), I was a sports fanatic and I wasn't smart (that came later to be totally honest.) Young Ashley was what everyone expected me to be, high school Ashley was what Smith expected me to be. Today I am who I expect me to be.

And I found a man who loves that about me. Who takes the crazy emotional, stubborn and caring soul I have and supports it. I found a man who lets me fix things time and time again because he knows I am trying my best for us. I found someone to play videogames with, laugh at my inability to name a song and hold me when I cry over the last book I read. I found someone who makes me an even better me. Who takes my sculpture and adds definition.

I wish I could help other people figure out what they don't like about themselves and change it. To support what they do like about themselves and to show people that the world doesn't have you pegged. You get to be yourself, and its a remarkable you.