Welcome to the Contradiction

I spend a lot of time thinking about legacy and stories — what we inherit, what we live out, and what we pass on. Especially as I watch my kids learn how to make sense of the world around them and write their own stories.

Watching my kids mirror me is a sobering experience to say the least, and it serves as a constant reminder of the influence I have on the stories they write, and ultimately the legacy that they pass on.

When I was in grade 2, my teacher got a book out of the library that contained names and their meanings. She sat on a stool at the front of the room and looked up each student's name and the corresponding meaning; Justine wasn't in there.

That tiny event ended up carrying a lot of weight for kid me — why was everyone else's name in that book and mine wasn't? Also, I could never find a personalized pen or keychain with my name, so I swore I'd never give my kids weird names….sorry kids but not sorry.

Anyway.

Justine was not in the book of names but Justin was, and the assumption here is that Justine is the feminine version of Justin. So one of the first pieces of information that I clung to as part of my formative identify was this:

Justin is an anglicized form of the Latin given name Justinus, a derivative of Justus, meaning "just", "fair", or "righteous".

And my quest for what is fair and right began.

Fun fact: For many years, I wanted to be a lawyer. Right up until I realized how much schooling it required and how many hours of work you have to put in to make real career progress...I would much rather spend my time having fun thank you very much.

Even though a career in law wasn't the path I ended up going down, I did inherit a story that revolves around social activism, inclusivity, and doing better.

That notion continued to shape a lot of the activities I got involved in throughout my childhood and teenage years. If there was a group championing for change, I joined it. If there was a fundraiser for a good cause, I got behind it.

And now, when I see something that needs to be called out, I start writing.

Today that thing is examining your legacy, aka what you leave behind — and I don't mean worldly possessions.

The most important legacy we inherit is the one that comes from our upbringing, and we pass it on with the life we lead and the choices we make.

More often than not, we take what was passed on and just coast with it. But at each turn, we're given an opportunity to do something different. Something better.

Unexamined, I inherited the story that I needed to be less. "Too big for my britches" is burned in my brain, and my gumption was a bit much at times.

I was endlessly curious and hungry for answers; I didn't care about being right, I just wanted to know. But I grew up in an environment that didn't like hard questions; our safety was in conforming, and I wasn't cut from that cloth.

That story sent me searching for connection and belonging, and for the space to be who I really am. Because when you spend your formative years trying to be who you're told to be instead of who you really are...it takes a toll.

I spent my twenties making choices to fit the person my child Self desperately wanted to be. Now that I'm in my thirties, I know who I am...and I have to clean up the mess from my attempts to be someone else.

While the introduction to my legacy happened years ago at a yoga retreat (more on that to come!) I really only scratched the surface of what was going to be uncovered.

It was like, "Oh, okay, so turns out the real me got crammed down and I have all these defense mechanisms keeping her safe as she is. But now I know she's in there, and the real work is making the space for her to be free."

The conversation about legacy opened the door to the idea that who I was that day had happened to me, and had developed from a place of not feeling safe being who I was.

I had learned to toe the line and tame my wild; to quiet my voice so that I would fit in.

But as Brene says, fitting in is not belonging.

And you must find belonging that's rooted in your Self first.

Knowing that the legacy I had inherited didn't fully integrate with the person who was trying to express herself wasn't enough to make it go away — it was just the first step. I knew the work that was ahead of me, but I wasn't ready to do it yet.

Facing the journey and starting it are two different things, but I know (in hindsight) that each step, even the pauses, were all part of the work.

You can't just climb a mountain on the first try. That shit is hard.

The work you do to prepare matters.

The "problem" is that distractions will come up along the way that pull you away from the real work. And it's hard to tell which distractions are productive, and which ones aren't.

This is where things get really hard for me to own and work through, and especially since having kids, there's no avoiding it because I'm watching them write their stories in real time and I want to help them write authentic ones.

Our kids hold up big fat mirrors every day reminding us of who we are, and by proxy, who we don't want to be. And we are operating with the weight of knowing exactly how much we are fucking them up, while trying to undo the damage of our own fucking up and how it led us here, so that we don't keep repeating the same infuriating patterns.

Worth mentioning. It has taken more than 20 minutes to write the last few paragraphs of this because I was interrupted 17,000 times by kids and dogs and now my insides are feeling ragey and I regret every single thing that made this messy chaos my life.

And.

I also know that I wouldn't be forced to do the work to be my better self and sift through my mess if it weren't for the chaos I created and the big love these kids introduced.

So I'm grateful for it.