Go Ahead With Your Own Life...Leave Me Alone!

I was a special eight year old. The Billy Joel song referenced above was literally my theme song. I hated being told what to do, when to do it, with whom I should do it, or how to do it. My emotions ran high pretty much all the time. It was during this phase of my life that I began self-imposed anger management seminars. I was so easily overwhelmed by emotion, and I so disliked being unable to control how I felt that after the third Saturday in a row of me crying my eyes out and embers of rage burning within me over something chore-related, I just couldn't take it anymore and decided there had to be a better way to live. It took awhile, and sometimes I still have meltdowns, but I think it's safe to say that things are better (overall) for me emotionally these days.

It's interesting that as an eight-year-old I related more to that song than I do now. Now the line that resonates with me is "Either way, it's okay, you wake up with yourself." The key is to being happy with the self you're waking up with. Doing the things you tell yourself you're going to do is so important. Being emotionally honest with yourself and with others is often the most difficult thing you can do in life, but if you can, you're so much better off. Hardly anybody wants to hear it (and here's where another Billy Joel song pops in my head, "Honesty...it's such a lonely word...everyone is so untrue. Honesty, it's hardly ever heard! But it's mostly what I need from you").

The more your actions align with your thoughts and your emotional plans to be honest, the happier you will be. In the last few months, I let go of some things that had been bothering me for a long time. I kept telling myself I was going to do it, that I needed to do it, but the fear of an emotional blowout kept me from it. In the end, it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it was going to be. I had already distanced myself from the situation, and it was just in my mind that the things I was laying to rest had power over me.


I walked to the river of dreams and let the things holding me back from rising like a phoenix, triumphant, fiery, and brave slip into the depths. I told the little devils inside me to go ahead with their own lives and leave me alone. It was liberating. It was needed. It was wrenching.

I don't know if the imps are completely exorcised, but they are vacationing somewhere very warm -- too warm for me -- and I don't wish them to come back. If they ever do, here's hoping beyond hope that I'll sing with all the emotion of that angsty eight year old: "Go ahead with your own life. Leave me alone."