Letting the Light Shine
The guys in my graduating class were nerds. Well, that’s what I thought, probably because they never paid me any attention. I much preferred the more mature older “men” in a class two years before mine. And probably because that is where I put my focus, that is where I got my attention. It totally floored me 20 years later to hear the drunken confessions at a class reunion of more than one guy who said they had wanted to ask me out but were too afraid to. Seems I was a bit intimidating without even knowing it.
At the beginning of high school I was a very confident, self-possessed young woman who was not afraid to take chances and put herself out on the line. I’m afraid that the ravages of peer acceptance and approval played havoc with those concepts. My high school experience taught me, among other things, that if your essence is too big, you run the risk of scaring people away. I became very adept at turning down the flame according to the company I was keeping or intended to keep. I remember my mother telling me before my first date where we were going bowling that I should let my date win. I looked at her dumbfounded that she could even suggest such a thing and set out to prove that she was wrong. Somehow I think her words sunk in despite my initial best efforts to throw them off and subsequent years found me doing just that. It was just easier to “go with the flow” than to risk the rejection. It was a lesson I learned well and took many years to set aside.
What a joy it is now to realize that I no longer have to dim my light in order to feel loved and accepted. I am most content when I feel I am shining brightly and have discovered that people are more drawn to me when I am not hiding out. I recently reconnected with a guy from my high school class who told me I looked fantastic. While I am flattered (and now recognize that he is not a nerd), I know that the sparkle in my eyes was probably there all along – its just that now I’m not afraid to let it out.