What if You Could Do It All Over Again

In my weekly writing class, the prompt was familiar, for I had asked my own students the same question over the years. Yet, ironically, I had actually never spent a lot of time contemplating my ain response in writing. Ok, I thought…now is the time.

If I could practise it all over again, what would I exercise differently?

And so, I began…

I would not mind to the fearful whispers, some of which have echoed in my ear throughout my years, often from others who were the closest to me: You aren't smart enough; you'll get lost if you go along your ain; you lot don't need a career; y'all take to get married earlier you graduate college otherwise information technology will be likewise hard to notice someone; daughters don't move away from home because they are supposed to take care of their mothers.

I fought these internal utterances for then long, merely a few of them ultimately prevailed because I was not strong enough to combat them. "Become abroad," I should accept yelled at these irrational, limiting statements of supposed fact, only instead my weakened sense of cocky and my acquiescence won. "OK," I responded. I'll do the side by side all-time thing." Of course, I now know that whatever of my fear-based decisions were never the true N of my soul, but this knowledge came from my years that I hadn't yet lived. Retrospect is then easy to interpret.

I desperately wanted to exist a medical doctor. I loved all subjects that had to practise with the man body, physiology, biology, psychology, but I abhorred math because I feared it and then. My mother's comments reinforced my trepidation and, in a sense, affirmed my own limited beliefs in myself: "Girls aren't really adept at math, so information technology'due south ok if you don't understand information technology."

Why didn't I question this ridiculous argument? But, of course, I did not have the fortitude or the understanding of myself and the world regarding stereotypes and traditional roles that weren't accurate or traditional. "I want to exist a doctor, I told my female parent, triumphant in my declaration of a life-long passion and career, simply she reminded me that this wasn't a job for a adult female. "How could you practice that and take children?" she added. Then, I offered her a runner up thought, "What almost a nurse?" "That's even worse," she responded. "You will be irresolute bed pans. "If you have to work, exist a instructor, so y'all tin can have the summers off to be with your kids and you volition be working the same hours equally your children are in school."

I knew I wanted to help others, so I placed 'teaching' in my retentiveness bank to be accessed years afterwards when because a college major and career, replacing my passion for science and medicine with another noble, altruistic field despite its 'runner-up' status in my center.

Forth with my mother's reminder that women in medicine was a poor thought, I allowed my female (!) geometry, drill sergeant-of-a-teacher to define me, but as a young daughter, I allowed others to easily wrinkle my spirit. I always deferred to authority whether it was my instructor or my mother.

Fast forward to my fourth decade when I decided that I wanted to earn a doctorate for no other reason than to challenge myself inside academia, as I had ever loved learning. And, so I did, become a 'doctor' of sorts, simply of grade not a medical doctor. In this style, I proudly tested myself, the little daughter who was told that if she had to become to college, then she at least needed to find a husband there.

The author and her husband Paul on the mean solar day she earned her doctorate degree

Source: bjaffe/blogger

One of my friends was exceedingly comfy anywhere effectually the globe. She could fly to an unknown European city with a map and comfortably detect her fashion. She literally said, "I could exist plopped down anywhere and experience at home." I began to sweat just thinking about doing the same. This thought was equally foreign to me as it was for my mother to allow me to bulldoze 20 minutes from our family domicile in San Francisco.

"You'll get lost. Let Daddy drive yous." I wanted to try and at times I did, all the while getting lost, sweating, pulling over to a phone booth, panicked, as I asked for directions and help. It became somewhat of a family joke that Barbara would always go lost. It wasn't until I married and shared my trepidation with Paul that he helped me through my directional limitations by mapping out where I wanted to bulldoze and spent a great deal of time writing it all down for me. In time, I became confident. Of course, today, a navigation system is 1 of my greatest joys.

Today, I can get myself to nearly any part of Los Angeles, which is no piece of cake feat. Still, the thought of renting a car and driving in unfamiliar territory still strikes a paralyzing fright within me. "Y'all might want to work on this," added my therapist who I have seen off and on for years. "Really, I don't. I am fine with never coming to terms with this issue and dying with the same fears. I have worked on myself then much in other means. I volition let this one go." Nosotros both smiled, but I am truly okay with it all. I am never hesitant to discover my fashion when my grandchildren are involved, which is enough for me.

Just, these reflections are filled with hindsight and retrospection. I go on to believe that for me, regret has no room in my life. Rather, what I accept chosen not to do are my choices and life lessons. Then many of my trepidations ultimately propelled me farther despite these thorns piercing my spirit.

Actually, I wouldn't do anything differently if I had to do it all over again, for I am here, with a good life, a life of contentment and quality, certainly with challenges and sorrows, simply of intense joy and laughter as well. Maybe, just possibly, I had to hear the whispers of fear so at present that I am growing sometime, I can say, "Yes, I heard them, and even listened to the words of dread that deterred me at times from the path I could accept taken. Yet, when I reflect on where I was and where I am, I would non do anything very differently except increment the often-muted volume of my ain vocalism that has always guided me to where I need to exist.

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Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/journey-healing/202107/if-i-could-do-it-all-over-again