Surrender for selfishness

I'm 27 years old and I have made something of myself, or at least that's what I told myself. I've spent the past five years in Mississippi trying to find "who I was" and "what" I was good at doing. Which meant, I've spent five years working 7-5, trying to put in as much work as possible and be better than everyone around me. It's the rat race of PR, the Capitol, and all those other lobbyist. 

I was good. I could have been great. I even got a complement one day, "Jeanetta, she's not like the other women lobbyist. She knows how to flirt with the line without being a whore." Yes, I was proud of that, but not as proud as when I stood up to the legislator after he told me all women are good for is fucking and fixining dinner. In truth, I didn't stand up, I smiled and nodded and let it go. Then I turned to everyone afterwards and told them "I don't cook and I sure as hell am not fucking you." I stood up to him....

My self proclaimed empire, my desire to be heard, my drive to be successful, and my competitive attidue to be the best. What happens when you walk away from that? Give it up freely? 

First you go into anger, because you DESERVED that. You EARNED it! 

Then you go into grieving, becuase what you EARNED is now LOST. It's gone. 

Then you go into depression, because what you LOST is who you USED to be.

Then you get axious, because you USED to be someone and now you have NO CLUE who you are. 

Then you end up HERE.... SURRENDER. 

I have been called the most selfish person and I have been called the least selfish person someone knows. It all makes me laugh, because everyone defines and meseaures selfishness by their own stick. I don't know what I am, but I know that I have been selfish. 

If you ask me what the opposite of selfishness is my first response would be giving, but that's just as selfish because it assumes you have something of yourself to give. Today, for me, the opposite of selfish is SURRENDER. When you willing lay everything down and give up yourSELF. 

I'm learning to do that a lot lately. It pretty much sucks... 

I am a woman who has spent so long finding her value in what she did, to now finding value in surrendering who she is. I am nobody. My name no longer carries any signficance. People do not know me, nor do they have a reason to. I am simple the granddaughter. Sometimes I'm the unwanted granddaughter. 

Part of laying down the self means that I must lay down my pride. Part of surrender means sitting in the window seat with my Grammer watching the squirrels chase each other in the grass. Today, surrender meant going to the stuffy church I have always been so against, and get introduced as "have you met my granddaughter?" Today, I am wanted. Today, I didn't have to fight to help. Today, I will give up my desires for connection, my need for community, my hope for what's next and rest in the pew next to my grandmother as she fills in her blanks in the church bullitin. 

I am the granddaughter and I surrender today.