I like real people.

Real people who have days that don't go the way they planned and aren't afraid to admit it.

I was thinking about this post when I read the posts of two of my "blog ladies". (My affectionate term for the authors of my favorite blogs to stalk... er, umm, read) Amanda Blake Soule of SouleMama and Ellie G over at less cake {more frosting} both posted about real life today. Really real life. Not the perfectness many exclusively post. And while I love the pristine perfectness and drool over the many talents and creative ideas of all my "blog ladies", every once in a while, its nice to know there are other real people out there. Real people like me.

First let me say that things are going wonderfully in my life and I thank God for that daily. Second let me say that while things have been going wonderfully, the last... 2 months has been a little "off" in the professional realm and I'm starting to feel discouraged. Third I've been hypersensitive to this "off-ness" thanks to my doctor messing with my hormones - and we will just leave it at that.

Now to the real "meat" of what I intended to post.

I'm about three quarters of the way through the book "Your Secret Name: Discovering Who God Created You to Be" by Kary Oberbrunner. Its not a great book. I'm not recommending it. But a few things the author talks about got me thinking. He mentions the names people give us and the names we give ourselves.

Lazy. Worthless. Stupid. Fat. Ugly. Poor. Confused. Whore. Gay. Old. Crazy. Skinny. Hyper-active. Short. Prude.

And many other variations on this theme. Society can be very creative.

Oberbrunner talks of cutting the names that he and others had given him into his body. Literally. And that's the part that stuck.

So many times it really has felt as if the labels or "names" that others had given to me had been cut into my flesh each and every time I heard them. And the names I gave myself. Its like I can feel those words as deep gashes that bleed, scab, and scar.

As a child growing up in a small, rural community in Northern Pennsylvania, most of my school mates were of Irish, German, or Polish decent. Blonde and blue eyed. And I was not. At 5'10" today and never short a day in my life, I have always, literally, stood out in a crowd. Add my Cherokee heritage to that and you get only one word that isn't opinion based: Different. Roll that in with very critical, conservative, southern baptist parents and I didn't have a popsicles chance in August.

I think the names we give ourselves are rooted in the names that others have given us. When I'm able to calm down enough to rationalize the voices in my head that are beating me up they sound a lot like my 4th grade best friend, the little girl next door, my father, my Sunday school teacher, my cheerleading coach, my first boss, a college professor, the list goes on.

But it ends here.

I am Anna. I am not all those other things people have said I am. I have talents and I have things I should leave to other people with talents in those areas. I am many wonderful things and the things that are not wonderful about me, are wonderful about someone else. And that is perfectly okay.

This is the lesson we need to teach children and all those who have any interaction with children.

And the lesson we need to teach ourselves.