TOPAZ HORIZON

Hobby. It took me ten years of blogging to realize that this blogging isn't a hobby. I was thinking of this over the last few months, how all my life I've avoided labels. Just ask Vince. It took me a long time before I finally agreed to be called his girlfriend even though I was, duh, his girlfriend. After we married, I resisted changing my last name because I couldn't see myself responding to "Mrs. Sales." When I started blogging and people asked if I was a blogger, I used to say, "I'm not a blogger. I just have an online journal." On a plane to London, a woman sitting beside me asked what I did for a living. I replied, "I work for a magazine publishing company. I write. I edit." And she said, "You're a journalist." And I replied, "No, no. That sounds so serious!" 

Fear of commitment, that's what it is. As Dumbledore told Harry Potter, "Always use the proper name for things. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself." 

I didn't like labels because I was scared to be tied to them and the responsibilities they came with.

Well, here we go: 

I am a wife. 

I am a mother. 

I am a writer. 

I am an editor. 

I am a journalist. 

I am a blogger. 

I am a friend. 

I am a sister. 

I am a businesswoman. 

I am a child of God. 

Funny how someone who always proclaimed that she's so proud to be who she is couldn't embrace the names of all that she is. Doesn't make sense, right? Well, to me, back then, to claim a name meant putting myself in a box. If people identify me as a blogger, what will happen if I give it up? If I become a wife, what happens when the marriage ends? If I tell people I'm a Born Again Christian, what happens when I fail and sin? Better to be safe and just live quietly.

Well, I'm finally claiming all these roles. Motherhood made me do it. That was what did it. Motherhood was a role I could never run away from, and accepting that role made me embrace everything else. And you know what? I love this new life of roles. I guess it comes from now knowing who I really am and not being afraid to be that. There is no longer the insecurity that plagues the young. There is no more doubt. I am who I am and I like me very much. Fabulousness and flaws.

Wow. I'm finally proud of who I am. I guess I never was. Felt like all my life I was trying to prove I was somebody but deep inside I wasn't really sure that somebody was someone to be proud of. Despite all I've accomplished in career and life! Imagine that! 

Thank goodness the years have changed me! I love growing old. That's why I think I'm coming out of my shell now. I'm open to do workshops and meet my readers, meet new people, because I now truly believe I have a lot to offer and I'm also willing to learn more. I want to tell people who I am and what I know—not just what I think—and hope this can help them. I want to add to my roles. I'm now humble enough to ask for and accept help to grow and mature. I'm also now confident enough of whatever I've achieved. I'm enough. Whatever and whoever I am now, I like it. Of course, I want to improve myself (as wife and mother, most definitely!) but I also know I'm doing okay. Yes, I'm okay. 

I hope you're also okay. God bless you!