This Year

I've probably said this before, and I'm going to fight tooth and nail to make this the last time I say it, but I realized today that I haven't been trying.  I've gained some self awareness over the past four years.  Because of this, I can see many of the ways in which I need improvement.  I've come a long way from who I used to be, and I've made a lot of progress, but I seem to have stopped moving (or at least going at an exponentially slower pace than I used to).  I can't struggle through all of that change and end up settling for less than what I'd originally set out for.  I don't strive for perfection, I strive for contentment.

I was reading something today that talked about self awareness.  It happened to discuss a negative example.  It said that our scripts come from things that happened when we're little.  Then it talked about a child who'd grown up not getting the attention she/he needs, so they grow up thinking that they're unlovable.  When I heard this, I did what I always do when the subject of bad childhoods starts up, I started thinking about mine.  I've known I do this for a while, but I made it alright by saying that I'm not trying to make myself upset about it, I'm just recounting the tale; remembering where I came from.  But it's a lie.   I feel sorry for myself, and secretly, I want others to feel sorry for me too.  That is definitely not the kind of self conscious thinking I need/want.

So there I was thinking, "hell, I need to get over it", and it hit me.  I've been telling myself for a year that I need to get over it.  This is the present, and there isn't a thing I can do about the past.  I can cry and fuss about it all I want.  People can tell me how sorry they are about what happened but it's not going to change anything. It still happened, I still survived it, and it's still the present, not the past.  So I can think about it all day long if I want.  I could cry, and complain.  I could.  Or I could really, truly accept it for what it was and get over it.  It's pointless to think, "oh yeah, that was bad and it shouldn't have happened".  What does that do?  It doesn't change it.  Nor does it make me feel better about it.  So really, what's the point?

There are other things that I've been telling myself for a year too.  I've said them all, "I know I'm lovable", "I know I'm a good person", "I know this and that".  A few weeks ago I came to the conclusion that I "know" these things because everyone tells them to me at any chance they're given.  I know them because they've been repeated to me so many times that it's like a broken record by now, but as far as knowing it inside of myself, for myself, that's a whole other matter.  I wondered why I would still be having so many issues with self image and self worth if I really truly knew that I was a good lovable person, and it was driving me insane.  Well, I haven't been trying to change the schema in my head.  I've changed the list of sources I can site, but I haven't changed the script.

I realized that I'm fine with not changing, that if I can get by and apologize later for my downfalls, then I'm okay.  That is definitely not okay.  I also realized that I'm afraid to change. If I change then I'm no longer that helpless victim that I've been my whole life.  If I change it's going to be hard and I'm going to be even more uncomfortable than I've been in the past.  If I change it means I'll have to accept things about myself that I've never accepted.  And when I came to these conclusions I finally fully realized that I haven't been giving it my all because I'm afraid.  I'm afraid that I won't be able to make it.  I'm afraid that I'll fail, so I give up before I start to avoid the disappointment of failure.  I give up before I start  so it's not difficult, so I don't have to deal with the pain.

But, not today.  Not this year.  I've said these things in the past, but this year is different.  This year is different.

I'm going to get healthy.
I'm going to get happy.
I'm going to keep truthful and personal journals.
I'm going to give it my all.
This year, it's going to be better.
This year I'M going to be better.

Upcoming Blog Topics

I haven't forgotten about my blog. I've been wrapped up in some things recently, but I hope to start typing regularly.  Here are some upcoming topics I've been mulling over:

• Write a blog about envy
• Write a blog about: Forgiveness is more than saying sorry, but it's also more than saying I forgive you
• Write a blog about wanting

Which would any of you like most so I know which to work on first?

Figuring out a Dream

As far as what I want out of life I'm pretty simple.  My main goal is to be genuinely happy, with both myself and with the life that I live.

As far as dreams go, I haven't necessarily had any long reaching ones.  Every little girl wants to be famous at some point right?  And I can still write a book when I'm retired.  I can even get into fashion, makeup, or photography through venues such as Youtube or Deviant art.  All of those dreams were nice, but they weren't very motivating for some reason.  One could say they weren't really my true dream, and I wouldn't argue.  Recently, due to my Learning Strategies Class, I've been pondering what could possibly be my real dream.  Having a wonderful loving family, that's a given and is in my near future.  But as for what to do after that, I had no idea, nor did I know if I even wanted to do anything after that.

But there was always something else on my mind.  There was always another dream slowly emerging from the pit of my subconscious.  I've thought of it before, but I never gave it much credit because it didn't fit with anything I'd ever considered before.  "Why does that matter though?", I asked myself today.  "It's still possible."  The more I thought about it the more I realized it seems like something I'd really enjoy being a part of.  So, I'm adding it to my little list of dreams and maybe someday I'll make it a reality.

You may be dying to know what this new dream could be.  It's semi-personal, so I won't reveal too many details but the short of it is this:  I'm currently working through some issues.  My dream in regards to these issues is to one day be happy and healthy, but I'm just one person.  There are millions more people just like me who have these very same issues, that are striving to be healthy too.  So it hit me.  What if I were to share my story with these people?  What if I could possibly give even one person the motivation they needed to get better?  I know there are days when it seems completely pointless, like I'm fighting an up hill battle, but when I read the success stories of people who won that battle it always gives me an extra shove towards my goal.  It restarts the fire and I know that it's not hopeless, that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  I want to add my name to that list of success stories.

I want to educate the public on this very prevalent disorder, and I want to build a support network for those who are healing.  It would involve both people who are in progress and people who have made it, so they can each give each other the love and support they desperately need in their battle against themselves.  I want it to be personal, and I want it to be intimate.  A lot of the sites out there that have piles and piles of information, but no one to talk to, and no actual person to give advice.  I want it to be a close nit community, where everyone can feel loved, comfortable, safe, and most of all, like they can trust each other.  After all, it would be comprised of people who share common ground; people who are struggling and people who have struggled.

I want to go and do seminars at schools or other local venues and talk about my story, and the story of everyone else who has to struggle. I want to be a guiding light to those people who are stuck in the darkness that is their disorder.  I know I can't change anyone, and I don't want to do that.  I merely want to  make myself available for a model, or at least for a source of information to those who want it (I would never think of forcing anyone to do anything, and a lot of people don't want or aren't ready for help, and that's perfectly fine).

I know that it'll take a while to get to a place where I can help people, because right now I personalize things too much and I end up triggering when I discuss these things with other people, but I know it's a definite outcome of my constant struggle.  I know that I can be healthy and happy, and I want all the other people who suffer from Borderline Personality Disorder to know they can be too.

I'm not ashamed that I have a personality disorder.
I'm not angry that I have it.
I'm not sad that I have it.
I don't let it control who I am.
I don't let it dictate what I do.
I don't let it hold me back.
And neither should anyone else.

It's About Accepting the Little Things

You know, I used to really hate my thick eyebrows, but recently I've come to love them.  I can't fathom why they were ever aesthetically displeasing to me.

I think in the search for self confidence, people tend to try and tackle everything at once.  Accepting every single thing that you've ever disliked about yourself at one time is tricky, difficult, and it usually doesn't work.  If you take it one thing at a time, one tiny detail after the other, eventually you'll have changed the way you look at yourself completely.

So yes, I love my thick eyebrows because they're sexy as hell when I do this:

'ey gurl, whatchoo doin?

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Question For You:

What's one thing that you used to dislike about yourself but you've come to love?

The truth of the matter

What are my goals in life? Well, to be quite honest, I don't have many. I only have one, and that's to

be happy. 

People assume that achieving things will make you happier, and while it does, it only lasts for a short time until you're forced to search for something else to achieve, and thus it's a vicious cycle. If I can't find the inner peace and happiness I long for without all the bells and whistles, well, I'm not entirely sure it's the real thing. 

If the only thing that makes me happy is accomplishing things, then it's not the happiness I want. 

I want a happiness that comes from inside. Something that's constant despite external things.

Yet, consistently, I'm made to feel like a failure because I simply do not wish to do anything.  Because I'm OKAY with my meager existence, and I don't want for anymore than I already have.  I can provide for myself on the money I earn. I can even have luxuries with the money I earn, and buy frivolous things.  I can save up for a vacation.  It might take a little longer than it could, but it will happen.  I'm okay with this.


Yet, I feel like a failure because I AM okay with this.  I feel like I should be motivated to achieve something greater. I feel like I should want a higher paying job, and that I should want other things.  I feel like I should want a job that works only five days a week. I feel like I should want a job that pays more than 8.50 an hour.  I feel like I should want so much more, and the only thing it's doing is making me miserable because the truth of the matter is: I don't.

Beauty is Only Skin Deep [It Starts Somewhere on the Inside]

I typically have a hard time calling myself pretty.  I will always try to find some way around it.  I really have never said that I'm beautiful.  That's a no~no word.

At the same time, I'm moderately vain.  I constantly check in the mirror to make sure that my hair is right, or my make up is correct; making sure that what I feel coincides with what I see.  It seems to be a bit backwards with me.  I feel much prettier when I don't look in the mirror. When I finally see myself, my confidence instantly deflates.  So, while I am always trying to catch my visage in any reflective surfaces, I avidly try and avoid it at all costs.  It's like playing the wheel of fortune, and you never know if you're gonna like it or hate it.
It's mostly because I tend to focus on the negative things over the positive, choosing to focus on the ONE zit that appeared over night, as apposed to the good qualities I have.

Another issue is, I assume that the minute I start saying I'm pretty, or I start pointing out my good traits, someone will call me vain and state that I have no reason to be so.  meh

I'm assuming everyone has a similar problem, because we're all human. We don't always like what we see, sometimes we wish to change something.  I'm tired of it to be honest.  It takes a lot of energy to feel concerned and worried all the time, and it's generally very frustrating.  I've been trying to do a lot of inner work, in hopes of coming to grips with the reality of the situation.  I don't know if I'm any closer than I used to be to finally realizing my own beauty, but at least it's a start.

I always find it hilarious that I have such low self esteem, because I can't ever find anything wrong with my face.  I would say the problem is my weight, but that's a vicious lie.  I weighed 124 pounds in the 9th grade and I still felt ugly all the time.  I know it's all in my head.  It's just a matter of dealing with it.

So, I am going to list the things about myself that I like, and completely disregard the things that I dislike.  I hope that eventually, I can do this all the time without even having to think much on it.  Hopefully, someday, I can internalize this list and believe it all the time, no matter what.

• I absolutely love my eyes.  The shape of them, the color, my lashes.  
• My nose has a good shape to it.  It's small from the front, and it's got a nice slant from the side.
• My lips are nice and full, and they're generally very soft.
• My skin is strikingly clear, and free of blemishes.  It turns a lovely shade of brown when I tan.
• My eyebrows accentuate my features nicely.
• I have dimples in my cheeks when I smile that are cute.
• I have a small dimple in my chin that I think makes me look distinguished.
• My hair is very shiny and soft.
• My hair has very faint strands of red that show up in the sun, which I've always loved.

So:

I challenge everyone to list at least 5 things [physical] about themselves that they love.  Try to avoid words like "mostly", "generally", "sort of", etc. because those are wishy washy words and it means that you don't exactly agree with yourself.  Only list things you feel for sure.

Sharing Love: A Foreign Concept

Every since I was little I've had a few problems with the concept of love.

Originally, it was merely my inability to ascertain what it could mean, or how it pertained to myself.  Over the years I've loved and I have been loved.  I've come to appreciate it much more than I used to, and thus it has taken up a large portion of my heart.

While it has become an easier subject to understand, there are still some issues I can't seem to sort out properly.

For some reason, in my head love seemed to be one giant mass.  Every time you loved someone else, you gave a portion of the mass out.  This applies to friends, family, pets, whoever.  Eventually, you'd get to a point where you don't have enough of the mass left over, so you'd have to take it from certain people and give it to the new people you met.  You'd also have the ability to take away love at will.  If someone has pissed you off royally, or hurt you deeply, you could completely devoid them of the love you once harbored for them.

So when I fought with anyone, I would feel lost and completely inconsolable because I felt as if they'd take their love away from me.  Or if I hadn't seen someone in a long time, I'd be afraid that they'd taken my love and given it to someone else.  If a friend chose to hang out with someone else over me, it was because they'd given them my love, or loved the more than me.  If a bunch of my friends hung out without me, it was because they didn't enjoy my company as much, thus they didn't love me as much.

I'm sure you can see why this thinking is flawed and illogical.  It's also extremely tiring to keep up and makes for jealous tendencies which I hate about myself.

I'm happy to say that I no longer hold the same beliefs of love that I once did, and that's due to many tiring conversations with close friends and family.  I now understand that love is not one singular thing.  It's more like a million different things.  Every time you love someone, you love them a little differently than you love someone else, and thus there are limitless "masses".  So trying to compare your love for you best friend to the love for your mother is impossible.  They're two separate things (thank you Lance for pointing this out).

You also can not remove your love from someone easily, so getting into an argument, not seeing a particular person, etc., will not make your love for them go away.  It may change the dynamic slightly, depending on the severity, but I think that once you love someone it's hard to truly rid yourself of that love completely.  And if you really love someone, you're not going to completely give up on them just because you argue with them.  Parents will yell, friends will be hurt, it's just a part of life.  People are people, and you're not always going to get along with each other, but that doesn't change anything.  At the end of the day, your mother still loves you even if you didn't meet her expectations, no matter how much you argued.

And if a friend is spending time with someone else it doesn't mean they love you any less in lieu of loving them more.  Their love for you is completely separate from their love for their other friends.  And if you feel as if you've been "replaced" you shouldn't because every one is extremely different.  It's not possible for someone to ever "replace" anyone else for the two reasons previously stated:  Because the love for the two individuals is different, and the two individuals are intrinsically different beings to begin with.

Having said that it is possible to become closer to someone else as apposed to old friends, but that's just the nature of things.  If you spend time with someone enough you're going to get to know them more.  It's how it works.

I'm rambling.  I'm sure I left some things out, but I can't think of them right now.

Thoughts?