What I Used to Live

I came across this quote the other day:

"...to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you like everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and to never stop fighting."
--e. e. cummings

This quote is not a new discovery for me.  It is a philosophy that I have spent so much of my life believing and living.  It was my senior quote in my high school yearbook, it was the quote I read every single morning on my mirror in college, and it was the quote that I kept in my head every time I had to do something new that scared me. 

In high school, I was one of very few members of my church my age.  I lived a lifestyle that didn't usually fit in with my partying peers and they found me an anomaly.  In college, I was trying to prove that I could fulfill my dreams even though most people who loved me didn't seem to support my dreams the way I wanted them to.  I fought the stereotypes of a "Mormon girl who just wanted to be a mom."  I fought the "you're just going to college because your parents want you to get married" stereotype. In new situations, I took them on as a challenge, believing I was strong enough to conquer the world.  In trials, I fought tooth and nail against being taken down, always believing that I was a Daughter of my Heavenly Father who loved me and knew me and would help me get where I needed to be, even if no one else believed my path was right.

Somehow, somewhere along that path, I lost that.  I let the world "make me like everybody else" and in doing so, lost myself.  It was a hard journey. It really is the hardest battle to fight.  If you stop fighting, the world swarms in and steals every bit of identity a person can create for herself.

I stopped living what I have always known as Truth in that quote's perfection.  I stopped believing that it was possible for me to live my life as "nobody but myself."  I stopped fighting night and day.  I stopped doing the things that made me unique.  I stopped believing in my Divine heritage.  In doing so, I lost my faith, my personality, my passion, and my individuality. 

Recent events in my life have helped me see that indeed, I can live that way again.  I don't have to be the "only Mormon," the strong, making-it-on-her-own college student, or the kicked-around-by-tribulations woman in order to be myself. 

I can be the person I have always believed I am.  I can be the Daughter I believe I am.  I can be the little girl who loved the world, trusted people, had passion and opinions, and danced to her own beat.

I am more than those difficult experiences.  I am more than those trials.  I am more than those stereotypes. 

I am nobody but myself.