Break your own rules

Progressive parents, I broke a major rule in my life recently. I tore a page out of an old journal and added it in a new one.

Normally I will copy the page (usually it’s quotes, key concepts from a book I read, or something to that effect) by hand into my new journal for the year. Now that seems redundant, but the me of last year would’ve cringed seeing me rip out a journal page.

Sometimes we create these silly rules and stick to them for ages. Why do we do this? I know I’ve had some body image and other rules that I maintained when I was younger because I thought they were things that good girls did and I was vehemently a good girl. These days I find myself breaking every rule; I even wore pink blush and lip gloss today. What the heck? Pink clashes with red hair, everyone knows that! I have shied away from the color since—well, since I read somewhere about the clash, which was probably a dumb magazine during junior high.

You can’t grow and change if you stay in a rigid mold, and that’s something I’m trying to teach Wood Sprite. I tell her how I used to think homeschooling was crazy and she looks at me, stunned. I used to never quit anything out of a rule that quitters were losers and bad people; now when something doesn’t feel right or hurts my family, I am gone. I won’t lie; I do still feel quite guilty when I do this. But I also think it’s the right thing to do. When two things feel bad, choose the one that makes you feel less bad, right?

But if you make that your rule, feel free to break it.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia