She’s shifty

(Please do not mistake my musings for one of those sad and pathetic “my family is the root of all my problems” kind of tirades. I’m just retracing my steps to find out where I got lost. All responsibility for actions or non-actions is mine and mine alone. Thank you.)

So, I'm not sure why, but I have this affliction. As soon as I as within a touching distance of a guy I like and I lose ALL ability to hold onto my personality. Yep, that's right-I'm a personality shifter. I become exactly what the guys either want or expects me to be. and i also suddenly begin to love whatever they love. Why? for example, i don't like classical music or seafood, but I've dated guys who did and suddenly I'm listening to music without words, which would normally either put me to sleep or make me want to scream) and ordering shrimp instead of steak. Wha? My Mom is not like that. Other women in my family aren't like that. Why am I? Hell if I know. But I'm willing to do the leg-work to find out.

I realized that for the past 15 years I have spent no more than 3 months in a row without being in a relationship of some kind. Now, is that healthy? Obviously not because I'm in kinda sad shape right now.

How do you form your own personality? Is it ingrained in us from birth what we are to become or do we get to choose who we are and what we come to love?

Everyone in my family swears my baby-girl looks and acts just like me. I watch my daughter (23 months) and I am amazed by her vibrant, yet mercurial personality. Am I like that? I joke with people that Cait is what I would have been had I had any self esteem, but that’s really not a joke. She is unabashedly true to her wants and desires in a way I do not remember ever being. Just as I shift with guys, I shift in my family as well. I am the peace-keeper-the ever neutral Switzerland. Never having an opinion, but going with the flow and smoothing feathers. However, that was years ago when my Dad and my Sister (both with strong personalities) clashed at every turn. Why did I not evolve into my authentic self when my sister went to college and left me an only child at 12? What held me back? My parents would not have; in fact, they tried to get me to have true opinions even when my sister would have yelled them down.

In trying to find what I lost I will begin with defining those things that I love? (*note- I will be leaving out my children, my family, and my friends because they are all just a given.) Hummmmm, what do I love? Gerber daisies (I’ve decided even though they were in my wedding, carried by my bridesmaids, I can still like them.), Pink, Purple, Sparkle (of any kind), dandelions, tattoos (yes, I really do, and I want a couple more. However, I do NOT want to look like Kat Von D.), Tinkerbelle, making sarcastic remarks, laughing until I cry, any book, movie, or documentary set in Victorian, Tutor, or Elizabethan England (yep, I’m an Anglophile), sitting outside and feeling the wind and sun on my face, sitting alone and reading in silence (so, I don’t actually get to do that one much.), pedicures, facials, my hair being red, Disney, writing, taking naps, yoga pants, sitting under the stars, cuddling....

What do I hate?
Roses (sorry, i just don't like them, especially red ones. The bright pink ones are pretty nice though.), being in a hurry, competing with someone I love, people telling me what to do, people telling me what I think (especially when they are wrong), feeling scared, being confused, having no time to myself, my cluttered room (normally it's due to lack of effort, but it's actually lack of space currently), feeling alone in a crowd, having anger and hate bubble up at random moments, crying...

I'm leaving the ellipses up because I think this will be an ongoing experiment in myself. Feel free to leave comments of your own favorites- it might jst give me more ideas.