I'm Illegitimate

Now I know that comes as surprise to my family, but only if they take this news literally. What I am talking about is the problem so many of us face when we don’t have the credentials that most often we think, others think we have to have to be called legitimate.

When I first got married, it took me awhile to call myself wife. Similarly, when I had my first child, I had difficulty reconciling myself as “mom”, even though I loved this child beyond any person or thing I had ever imagined and had carried her in my belly for nine months prior to her birth. It takes many people a long time to call themselves an entrepreneur, even though they have been in business for a while. You can be a mom or a dad, even if you have never birthed a child. You can be an artist, even if you have never sold a painting or taken an art class. You can be a writer, even if you have never written a book. You can be an educator, a designer, a surfer, an actor, or anything really, even if you don’t have the formal training one may think is required to hold the title. It really is just a state of mind, you have to own it, believe it in your core, and do it.

xo, jan