Black Sheep Is a Gift to the Family Line

As a child, I was the rebellious one. The one who questioned things, searched for my own paths, and simply walked them. I knew I was doing something “wrong” from the way my parents reacted to me. They didn’t have it easy with me. They tried, in all sorts of ways, to fix me and put me back on the “right track.”

I even tried being a good daughter, but somehow, something always seemed to be wrong. The little jokes about how “you must have been adopted” gradually became the better version of the story, because quite early on, I stopped feeling entirely at home within my own family.

I was the black sheep. The child my parents complained about most often, and sometimes even felt ashamed of.

They were a little proud of my successes, but more frightened of where they might lead me — afraid, perhaps, that I would end up on the wrong path.

I read too much and was “ruining my mind.”

I already had two sisters, so why would I need friends?

The best school, apparently, was the one closest to home, because then they could keep an eye on me. Never mind that it was the weakest school in the area.

So I applied to the best high school anyway — and only told my parents after I had passed the entrance exams.

And eventually, I became the black sheep who no longer wanted to stay in the flock so badly that she “ran away from home.”

Although, to be fair, I was already nineteen. I had a job and had passed my final exams. In truth, I simply took full responsibility for my own life. Still, stepping out into the world was rather dramatic. I left home one morning to go to work — and never came back. I had my ID, my driving licence, my school-leaving certificate, and the clothes I was wearing. And that was my entire dowry.

Well… not quite. I also carried something far more valuable than any material possessions:

determination, the will to fight for myself, and an unshakable belief in who I was.

Looking back now, through the lens of everything I have achieved and everything I have observed in other people’s lives, I can see that things could have turned out very differently. My path became one of hard work, learning, and searching for my own place in the world. I can say that I gave myself the luxury of consciously creating my life.

— and, perhaps even more importantly,

what I did not want.

Would I be where I am today if I had been a good, obedient daughter? I don’t think so. Sometime in the 1990s or early 2000s, I read a book called Good Girls Go to Heaven, Bad Girls Go Everywhere. It felt like a revelation. And somehow, it quietened my guilty conscience. Because even though I was doing what I wanted, and in the way I wanted, I was never completely free from the feeling that I had disappointed my family.

Now I understand. We black sheep are here for a reason.

We are the ones who show our families that there is another way. That life can be different. That perhaps it can even be better. Other paths are not lesser simply because they are different. They can be beautiful. Exciting.

They can take us to places we never imagined and teach us things we could never have learned by staying on the familiar road.

If I had stayed home and done what, from my parents’ perspective, was “good for me,” I would never have discovered who I truly was — or what I was capable of.

And now I am a mother. Which means I sometimes have to remind myself not to expect my children to live the lives I imagine will be best for them. Even with all my experience, even knowing what I know — and knowing how much I don’t know — I simply cannot know what kind of life will be the right one for my children. But that is the strange thing about a mother’s love.

It comes with tenderness, and with fear. With a deep desire to protect. And sometimes, despite everything I know, I still want to arrange the pieces of their lives according to what I believe will keep them safe and make everything turn out well.

Oh, how I have to keep an eye on myself…

Because perhaps loving our children also means leaving space for their own paths.

For their own mistakes.

For their own discoveries.

For the roads we would never have chosen for them.

I have two children.

A beautiful, grown-up black sheep… 

…and a young, promising little black ram. :)

If you are such a black sheep, and you need to meet yourself in presence of other, kind women - please attent the nearest Circle.