Being real

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day.  "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse.  "It's a thing that happens to you.  When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?"
"Sometimes." For he was always truthful.  "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up, or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once.  You become.  It takes a long time.  That's why it doesn't happen to people who break easily, or who have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept.  Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby.  But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."  from The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams

I have decided that the process of becoming real is life-long.  Sometimes it takes an interruption in our lives to make us realize that we want to be real.  Sometimes it happens so gradually that we open our eyes one day and realize that there is no turning back in this process of being real.  Sometimes it takes pain for us to realize that we are becoming real.  Whatever the case, being real requires relationships and being hurt.  To be real, we must love and be loved.  Being real means that our faults and our imperfections and our emotions show.  But to the people who really love us, those things don't matter.  They just make us more lovable.

Even though my heart's desire is to be REAL, I often struggle with "letting it all hang out".  There is risk involved...rejection, embarrassment, misunderstanding, and more hurt.  I risk being abandoned by people who don't understand or don't really care...and maybe I shouldn't see that as a great loss, but I do.  Maybe that hurt will help me along the path of becoming real.  In spite of the pain, I have come too far to turn back now.  At the end of my life, I want to smile like the Skin Horse and know that I am real!