Okay to be who you are

Last Saturday, I read Web of Air by Philip Reeve.  It was terrible.  The main character abandons the children for whom she is the only parent figure, and her love interest leaves, feeling that she has betrayed him.  It left a bad taste, so I looked at my shelf looking for a sweeter book.  I chose The Changeling Sea by Patricia McKillip.  At the end of the book, Lyo kisses Peri.  That moment stuck in my mind.  What stuck was a sense of myself as Peri, being loved by Lyo. 

 I'm not insecure in the sense of doubting my worth.  I know I'm worthy.  What I doubt is whether other humans on this planet can see me worth.

I always feel like I can't quite be myself, because other people couldn't handle it.  This past week, I've been reading A Blue Sword.  The parts that jumped out at me were the same parts I quoted in this blog in February 2013:

she was adapting to her new life as best as her energetic self could. She might have screamed, and hammered on the walls with her fists...but she was trying her best to be good. So she was merely first to the breakfast table.

 and

 it wasn't her size or her coloring that held him beyond the first startled flick of notice; nor was it her beauty. There was too much strength in that face and in the long bones of the body for beauty. Something about the quietness of her, perhaps? Or her self-contained straightness....like the contained straightness he himself had learned, knowing well what could happen if he relaxed. 

 A song that resonates with  me is "Janie" by Alien Folklife.  It's about a girl who spends her life working to please her mother, but feels like she can never be good enough.


What I saw when Lyo loved Peri, I wondered, can I imagine that someone loves me that way? Can I live as if someone loves me that way? Can I walk in the world knowing it's okay to be who I am?

But I don't think that I can.