It is never too late to be who you might have been. ~George Eliot

I love that quote. I have it on a bookmark that goes from book to book as I read.

Do you ever read something like that and understand that the meaning is great but never really feel it? I’ve had that bookmark for years. I understood the meaning right away and felt it must be true, but I never felt it inside me; like it was my own truth.

There are truths we believe and then there are truths we own. Sometimes they are the same, sometimes not. I believe a man can walk on the moon, or can walk around with an artificial heart pumping in his chest, or can drive a car across a desert at 300+ mph, but I don’t own any of those truths. They aren’t my truths; they just are.

My truths are things that make me who I am deep within me, truths I own. Sometimes those things we know to be the truth about ourselves are really falsehoods we have mistaken for truths. Those will eventually be exposed for fraudulent beliefs. Sometimes it doesn’t take much for that exposure to take place, other times it may take years.

It seems odd when I think about my life and where I’ve been. There were many sadnesses that I was hanging onto like souvenirs from some show I’d seen. Those truths that I believed for so long that have been exposed as deceptions are heavy. It’s almost a relief to cast them off.

One truth I used to say (and I still own) is that I had my children when I was young so I’d still be young when they were old. I wouldn’t be what I am now without my children. I suppose I knew back then I’d be doing things that needed resilience: exposing falsehoods and seeking truths; learning… always learning.