Life can start out a bit rocky for some. My story (my Mom’s story after I was born, therefore, part of mine) was that way.
I’m reminiscing as I was just there… in the country it all began and where I was born to two teenage parents, ages 16 and 19 (~>because I find humor in most things, I’ve always said that my parents patiently waited to have me…married at 15, she, my Mom, had me a full year later.)
But, my Mom, instead of having a rock, she felt like one…heavy with worry and fear. In the arms of her man, for most of their relationship, she didn’t feel safe.
As I’ve shared with friends over the years, yes, it’s my story since I was born from it, but I wasn’t born OF it. There’s a difference.
You can be born from a situation, but decide to be created or create OF yourself — your new ideas, your excitement of what life can be, of what you saw your Mom make OF herself after she decided to leave and many years later marry someone who treated her with the fine TLC you might use to care for a beautiful rose, your first one…
You could have been part of something at one point yesterday or long ago, however, not keep choosing from it.
At 23, it was my conscious choice to choose love over infatuation, love over the exciting “bad boy”, my worth over someone else’s (this is why I’ve shared that I didn’t know Josh was IT early on — he was different… emotionally available, but I chose to choose him, to choose myself, every day more and more as we dated).
As women, one of the first ways we express our worth or keep expressing it is through the men or relationships we choose — or those we allow to choose us. The latter happens almost more often than the former when it comes to women finding themselves in situations or love that isn’t allowing them to see themselves as that rose — or to feel what life looks like with a man who, though you have your own, can feel like your second pair of rose-colored glasses.
We sometimes write our worth story early on in pen, when maybe pencil is best. Through lessons learned in young love, emotional growth, wise choice and a richer commitment to self, we can commit to ink…
As we keep growing, we can also choose, not only a different pen but a variety of them, writing the most colorful self-love story — each chapter brighter than the last because we keep choosing ourselves.
The other day as I sat in the car headed to lunch…with my beautiful and loving Guatemalan family — many who were there with my Mom throughout those sensitive years — here’s what I thought and know to be true:
We get to fall in love, every day, with writing a few more words of the worth story in pen, knowing that with that latest page or chapter, no longer fiction, but blissful biography, we choose ourselves, we choose life.
Enjoy your business, enjoy your life!
Life is good,
Michelle Ghilotti
Couture Brand Creator & Success Coach
