The Long Journey Back Home to Self

It has taken me this long to find my way home. And that’s ok.

We each have our own story of finding our way back to who we were meant to be. It can take a lifetime. 

I am an only child born to immigrant Sicilian/Italian parents. I have come to understand on a much deeper level all that they went through to create the lives that they did, and to give me what they could. I am so very grateful.

They were human. So, of course, there were issues that I have needed to work through in my life. 

An only child, I learned that my safe place was in my room, where I could hear myself think. I did not share my childhood experience with siblings, so my story has no co-authors and no one to research the facts with. And my safe place is still in solitude. 

But my story is not really about facts. It’s about feelings. My feelings. Feelings that I have finally come to accept, to stop judging, and to learn from. 

Overprotected, I didn’t learn how to properly set boundaries for myself. Boundaries were set solidly and rigidly for me. My parents were trying to protect me, I know. But once free, I trusted too easily and openly, without being able to always discern friend from foe. 

I have learned that. To know what is nourishing for me and what is not. And to be able to give myself permission to let go of what does not serve me well. Not with anger or evil intentions toward others, but with blessings wished and knowledge that our paths are not best travelled together.

A child of immigrants. As a youngster, wanting to fit in and be like everyone else. Now proud of my heritage and so grateful for its many gifts to me. Italians speak the language of emotions, and I have inherited that. What a blessing. 

Growing up and not feeling seen and heard. Parents trying their best to provide and mold me into what they thought I should be. And me, much of my life, trying to mold myself to please others, to be liked, to feel worthwhile. Not realizing that the shape of me was already there, needing to be encouraged and brought out, not molded into something else.

Never feeling good enough. Being an only child, I think one feeling that I had was the attempt to be perfect, since I was the only one. And, as a child of immigrants, trying to help my parents feel more successful in this new country by making them proud. 

I failed. I was too quiet, too sensitive, loved to draw, wanted to play the piano (my father decided I should take accordion lessons instead), wanted to be a Girl Scout, go to after school activities, join groups of friends. Home rules were strict, for the most part. Come home after school, no joining any outside groups or activities. Staying home to be safe.

 I felt suffocated.

Fighting to get to go away to college, fighting for that as if my life depended on it. Because it did. I could feel the path before me that was expected if I stayed home with my parents, to become the hairdresser that they decided I should be (getting my hairdresser’s license before I even graduated from high school). Most likely getting married to get out of the house, and then maybe having a family without really knowing if that was what I wanted. 

Absolute joy and relief at finally enlisting the aid of a school counselor supporting me in wanting to go away to college and my going away to school. Even picking a major that would be best served by going away to a state college versus the local community college which my parents would have accepted. 

So many decisions were made around trying to break free from my parents’ definition of who I was. But, once free, having no clue as to who I was. 

 And finally saying no to my father, at the beginning of my second year of college, when he had decided that we were all going to move back to Italy. He had even started inquiring about colleges there. Without telling me.

That was the final call to Self that I needed. I said no. No. For the first time. That no reverberated inside me for a long time. I shook with excitement and anxiety. Now what?

 I supported myself and finished my college education without my parents’ assistance. I did it on my own. That was such a lesson on so many levels for me. I had doubted, deep inside, whether I really could take care of myself. I got a bachelor’s degree in psychology (makes sense, right?) and a master’s degree in social work. 

I became a social worker. I don’t regret that as it was a rewarding career. But I know that the choice to become a social worker had to do with being a caregiver, with taking care of others’ needs, with focusing on helping and earning my worth. 

Fast forward to dating, marriage, jobs, and still trying to figure out who I was and what my passions were. I was following what I thought was a roadmap for life. But I wasn’t sure if it was my roadmap.

I have had a good life so far and appreciate each and every step along the way. Even the painful ones. I learned the most from them, I think.

I got divorced, which makes sense since I still didn’t really have a deep sense of who I was. How could I commit to and be with anyone else if I didn’t really know who I was?

I have had many jobs in the field and have been deeply touched by the clients that I have been lucky enough to have known and worked with. They taught me so much about the resiliency of the human spirit. And the importance of truly being seen and heard, no matter what your life condition and circumstances are. 

And now I am retired, for three years. And I cannot begin to express the gift that this has been for me. 

I am lucky enough to be able to still live in my own home, still take care of myself. 

I have gone back to art. I now paint regularly, have even joined a local art association, and allow my work to be seen in their shows. 

I now write, which I have always loved to do, but never felt like I had the time or perhaps that I had anything of enough value to write about. It is another road home to me. My Self. 

I find that I am choosier about who I spend my time with, as well as how I spend my time. There are times when choosing to be alone and doing nothing is the priority. Because I need to stop and hear my soul and what it may need, what it may be asking for. 

I am coming home. To me. Finally.