Daryl Wood's Blog

It’s a beautiful day and the day I celebrate my son’s birth – 30 years ago. How can that be? I remember this day in 1979 and I remember so many days after that. Loving him and nurturing him and growing him up. What I am most aware of today is both how much I have grown up AND how much I have grown into.

There is this way that I have been gradually coming back to myself. I have a sense that I really lost myself early on in life and progressively throughout my childhood I became who I thought I needed to be in order to feel safe in the world. It wasn’t always what I wished for and I was convinced there was no other way. So here I am now, at 54, with a 30 year old son, looking back and being in awe of who I have become.

I like me. I like the me that hesitates to be seen and the me that lets herself be clearly visible. I also like that I am still growing into the woman I know is just under the surface (and more revealed every day). It reminds me of one of those poorly designed Halloween costumes where your real clothes inevitably stick out from underneath. We all know there is someone under all that stuff and yet we have to face the mask that keeps them out of sight.

Growing into myself means a lot these days. I have been making some very bold statements lately – to myself, to friends, to clients. To say it out loud and here feels raw. I am demanding courage from others – the courage to “stay” with feelings that typically make us run (to food, to work, to substances, to any number of escapes). I know it is just a matter of time before I will have to give up this tiring habit of avoidance if I am to move into the next stage of my personal growth. And it is tiring.

So, today is a new day. A “birth”day in many ways. I’d rather have this growing into than the standing still that dominated my younger years. Onward ho!