I know, a heavy title. But for good reason.

We grew up. We have responsibilities now. It doesn’t matter who we were as kids. We’ve grown and evolved into adults.

Yeah, adults who feel a lot of stress every day.

Each time we get peeved about not having any time for fun or to do the things we want to do, essentially, we are kicking our inner self to the curb, and that part of us is angry! What are we doing with that anger?

For me, I kept busy so that I didn’t have to recognize it. But it was there, stewing in the pit of my stomach, ready to explode. And because of that lifestyle, I made myself sick, literally. The stress has burdened me with acid reflux where I take a prescription drug every night. I am not complaining; other folks my age might have it worse. I’m just telling it like it is.

I stopped being myself years ago, when I felt like it caused me too much pain to do so. I had to protect myself and go into survival mode to function. Thank God for therapists, because they were my saving grace. Yes, plural. Not at the same time, just spread out throughout the years. I needed someone on the outside to help me learn that it’s okay to be myself. It’s been a journey.

Now, I’m good. I’ve gone through a lot of pain, feeling it all, and processed it. It was tough, but when you get on the other side, there is so much clarity and moments when you think why the hell was I so afraid of doing this? It’s the best thing I could’ve done for my life!

We always seem to be waiting.

Once the kids graduate, we’ll go on that vacation. Once I lose 50 pounds, I’ll be so much more confident. Or, once I get stronger or have more money, I can leave relationships that harm me.  You get the gist. Always waiting.

Well, how about we stop waiting right now? How about we turn the page on our new life today? Not tomorrow or next week when the time seems better.

Today, ladies! *

Take a few quiet, alone minutes (yes, you can do that) and think about who you are.  Are you happy? I write about being happy because what is life for if we aren’t happy? Are we just going through the motions? Doing the same ‘ol day after day.

We can change.

We can be better than yesterday and connect with our true identity. It’s okay to do that.

Some of us had our innate gifts, talents, and personality molded by others so that we became what they wanted, and it’s sometimes difficult to figure out who we are now.  No worries. We can get there with enough attention paid to ourselves.

The child within us is still there. We have an obligation to ourselves to honor that child. What we wanted for ourselves as children may be very different from who we are today, but we’re still the same person, only a little worn, a little ragged from the day-to-day grind of life.

We’re still inside.

All we have to do is get quiet, listen, and pay more attention to ourselves.

Thank you for reading this. I want us all to be happy.

To the real us,

Francesca

 

* I’m not referring to only women. That’s a line from the sitcom Modern Family, when Lily, the snarky teenage daughter of Mitch and Cam (a gay married couple who adopted her), said it to them to get them ready to leave. That’s what I had in my head. It’s for anyone.

 

 

 

Written by a human for humans.

© 2026 FrancescaME | All rights reserved.

NO PERMISSION FOR AI TRAINING: Any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.