OITNB

When I start learning new things, I tend to connect it with every facet of my life. It’s how I remember things and why I’m good at remembering facts (maybe, I have no idea, but let’s pretend) So, in keeping with my usual self, I have been mulling over ‘authenticity’ and simultaneously binge-watching Orange is the New Black.

How do these things even remotely connect in my brain? Piper has no choice but to come to terms with who she is while in prison. Not who she wants to be someday, who she used to be, or what anyone else wants her to be. Her mother and family friends keep harping that they know this is not who she is, they know she is better than this. And she eventually insists to them, no THIS is exactly who I am. She doesn’t make it easy or comfortable for them, she is firm in the decisions she made. Yes, we evolve, I especially hope to evolve over these next 12 months into a much better person. However, you cannot be genuine without admitting to yourself, and to others, that who you are and the choices you have made, past or present, were YOU. You cannot take the easy way out, you cannot abandon your decisions and act like someone else made them for you.

Yes, I am VASTLY different from who I used to be, even just a year ago. But I had to sit with myself and understand that I shouldn’t be ashamed of decisions that I made, that it is all a part of who I am. And I had to love myself through that. 

Something I really am learning about “genuine” is that it’s not exactly the superficial meaning that we originally think. It’s not just being honest, or blunt. It’s HOW you are honest, with yourself and with others, and HOW you are blunt.

 

The journey continues,