Well, maybe that applies to some people. But looking at myself now I realize how much I've been able to change since I left Texas, because I don't have so much holding me back. With family expectations, social norms, conformity that didn't express me at all--I was constantly feeling at odds with the world and unable to change it.
I think part of it is just making the drastic change of moving here. Part of it is a husband who is open-minded and revels in me discovering what's really true in myself. And part of it is supportive communities where people understand this approach to living and don't get as caught up in what they're "supposed" to be doing or feeling. Not that there isn't, say, a political norm in the Unitarian church, but when it's my norm anyway it's so much more comfortable. Living without that disconnect may finally be having the effect of freeing me to find out what will make me happpy and fulfilled. My Inner Anthropologist can see arbitrary standards for what they are, but the rest of me is breathing a sigh of relief!
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