I was writing some time ago that the emotions are never wrong, but I made it explicit that I am writing only about basic emotions. And now I am thinking.. in fact no emotions are wrong. In fact one cannot tell that the other's perception of reality, wants, wishes, likes or dislikes are wrong. Even though the external implications of following my impulses may render them as not always morally right, internally they are always true, true to me. Wow. That information completely changes the rules of the game. Instead of trying to figure out how it is that I should be doing things, what I should be thinking, what I should be feeling, I realise that I can simply do what I please with my life! To some people what I wrote may seem ridiculously obvious, but seriously, if you are brought up by parents who constantly invalidate everything you do, say or think, this is far from seeming even possible.
Of course I have always had the information about what I want. I have just never paid attention to it. I dismissed it in the first place. I thought this is the "crazy", the "weird" part of me that makes me different from who I should be. I tried to destroy exactly this part. When I think about it now it is obvious: I thought I had to be the way my parents wanted me to be, so of course what makes me different from what they want from me is my own wants and wishes, my autonomy. This is what has always been in the way of me just becoming the perfect version of their daughter - the fact that I am a separate person with their own life and goals. Of course what is an essence of who I am appeared to me as exactly what is making me not "perfect". That is so obvious that I cannot believe how I did not see it before.
It's as if I have always had this jewel with me, I just packed it into a grey cartoon box with a big label "it's not this one" years ago, and I have spent the rest of my life looking for the jewel, never having the thought to look inside this grey box. This box I have seen million times, it's there in the central place of my consciousness, it's the prominent part of my life. Of course it is, it's me! But it has never occurred to me to look inside. I would look everywhere but not there.
Of course it will take time to look inside this box now. Just like in the story about American Indians finding it hard to realise that they're seeing the Columbus' ship (because supposedly they had no concept of the sea or ships), I only now saw this box that has always been there.