It's difficult to put my thoughts into words sometimes because while, to my mind, I am simply coming into myself and discovering many beautiful things about life and love, I fear that it appears to others that I am changing out of the person they always knew and loved, into someone strange and foreign to them. I wish there was a way for me to show them that I am still the same person, just looking to figure everything out in my own way and time.
The truth is that I feel so liberated by my choices and their outcomes, and then feel really downcast when I think of the people who will think poorly of me for them. It has made me kind of wary about how much of my joy I share with people, and lends me to think too much about what others think at the cost of my personal joy. Cultural pressure is a difficult thing to combat in terms of how it affects your view of yourself and your decisions, no matter how confident you feel about them within your heart. I've been told I'm at that age and stage of difficulty in figuring out which and how much people's opinions should bear sway. I feel very vulnerable about it because people's high opinions of me have been something that I have relied on in shaping my self-confidence and self-concepts. It's hard to break away from that, but I'm realizing that that's just one of the byproducts of making your own way in life and making decisions on your own. When I look at it in that light, I wouldn't take my choices back for any number of respecting friends. It's just something I need to work through and move past.