I Only Knew Myself When I Was 40

I grew up only with my single mum since I was 2.

It wasn’t easy for her in those earlier days when divorce was a taboo, in addition to the financial challenges.

It was also not easy for me growing up, having to listen to my mum lamenting about how my father had abandoned us and how difficult her life was.

So growing up, I had the impression that I was the one who held my mum back to do the things she wanted to do, like finding a new husband.

She’d lament that no eligible man would want to marry her, seeing she already had a young child.

As an extrovert, my mum had no qualms about expressing herself. And being an introvert, her life became my life.

I knew I was a bit of an oddball once I hit my teens. But I learnt to adapt to my environment, so that I won’t stick out like a sore thumb.

I became whatever or whoever people needed me to be.

Perhaps because my mum has an outgoing personality, I found myself attracted to people who were also extroverted and outspoken. Or perhaps it’s because I knew I wasn’t like that but I wanted to be.

So it only became ‘natural’ for me that I married a man who was outgoing and very sociable.

I was happy playing house and just being a submissive wife. Until my husband cheated on me.

I became a divorcee by the age of 33, wondering what went wrong with my life.

I particularly remembered one morning, towards the end of my marriage, my then husband said to me, “you won’t do anything big”.

The next 7 years turned out to be a journey of self-discovery which I shared in my book.

Despite growing up in a broken family unit, I’ve known at a young age that I’ve always wanted a life companion and to be married. Happily married.

This might sound easy to some people. But having gone through a failed marriage, I’ve learnt that being happily married is definitely not what the novels and movies portrayed it to be.

The turning point came after I got together with my now 2nd husband.

He was unlike all the men I’ve dated. He might be an extrovert, but he’s a very shy one.

Instead of me moulding myself to be whoever he wanted me to be, he wanted to do whatever I wanted to do.

This was definitely new to me, and something I wasn’t quite used to.

I figured if he wanted to mirror me, then it should be the best version of me.

That’s when I allowed the real me to slowly surface. I say slowly because, I wasn’t sure he’d judge me or dislike the real me.

Thankfully, he accepted me. He might not fully understand my beliefs in certain causes or my little quirks, but he accepted me for who I am.

Even the people around me started to notice the change in me.

My colleagues remarked that they didn’t know that I was quite a comedian.

One of my relatives, on the other hand, told my mum that I seemed to have become arrogant. Of course being who she is, my mum wouldn’t have noticed. But when I shared about this to my best friend, she said, “I think she’s confused between arrogance and confidence. You’ve become more confident, instead of that shy and timid girl they used to know, and they couldn’t understand it.”.

I took that as a compliment!

Do I wish I would’ve known who I was earlier in life? Maybe. I could’ve gone on an entirely different path in my life.

But if I did, I’m not so sure if I would be who I am today as well.

“To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, enlightenment.” - Eckhart Tolle

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