I am me - FP Challenge Prompt 12

This month's challenge over at Forward Progress is about letting go and free ourselves from the expectations of others.

This was a difficult challenge for me. It kept lingering in my mind, and the more I thought about it, the more I knew I'm not there yet ... I'm not free from the expectations of others. My life is filled with expectations ... I expect a lot from my family, my friends, myself, and I know they have certain expectations from me. I really don't know how to go through life without expectations, so why would I expect others to expect nothing from me? The only sense I could make out of this, the only thing I've learned through the years, is to not let it bother me all that much if I don't live up to someone's expectations. With me, what you see is what you get. Expect all from me that you want, but if I can't live up to your expectations, that's your problem, not mine...

So here's my take on the challenge. It's a 9x9 page, the first page for my BOM album.

I had problems putting this into words for a LO, but when I found this "Ralph Waldo Emerson" quote, it knew instantly it said all I wanted to say:

"All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I looked someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naive. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I and only I could answer. It took me a while and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: that I am nobody but myself."

This album will be all about me (as the name says duh LOL), about my random thoughts and feelings. I'm thinking most of them will be inspired by song lyrics or quotes, as I've never been any good in just putting my thoughts on paper. I've tried started a journal several times, but I've failed miserably each time. I need to be inspired first LOL.

Obviously this is a very plain LO, but I love it, the pic just doesn't do it justice. In future, I'm hoping this album will have the look of an art journal, but for this particular assignment, I wanted the LO to reflect me ... plain and simple, no frills, true to my "what you see is what you get" theme.

I'm hoping some of you will find the time to play along with us this month, you still have two more weeks to submit your entry. Even if you haven't "progressed" in a certain area, you might, like me, find that that's okay too. Life is about evolving, we can't expect to have everything sorted out right now, right? If ever...

Love xxx Peggy