Learning

Character awareness, growth of self worth and assertion of identity are oft things we are immersed in, like fish in water. So maybe, that is what makes all of it so interesting. Maybe I am now just poking my head out of the water to see and appreciate the water for the driving force that it is. I always joke with my friends that this year I am going to work on x for myself. It is funny when I express, but it is genuinely exciting for me to do it, for example last year my self-project was becoming more vulnerable, and now I am working on being okay with my neediness of people's time and support, ie both to a selfish degree and to a tamed one. Interestingly enough, it was always a simultaneous goal in the back of my mind, that I wanted to improve my friendships, because as my brother likes to point out I am horrible at them. But in trying to be more vulnerable and more needy, I kind of got the aha lesson of how it works. Friendships were exhausting and difficult to keep up for me because I didn't invest in making it a two way street, if I didn't think I had something to offer, I didn't really want to reach out. Mind you no one asked me to offer anything, it is just an extension of how I built my self worth- worth based on what I can provide and not who I was. It is a difficult transition to try to attain, measuring self worth based on nothing else but who I am. That is the root of the diabetic level of kindness I had that often led to unnecessary levels of favors that landed me in bad situations. I got the speech often from my family, and friends. But I figured, no no if they knew exactly who I was or how many mistakes I've made, they'd understand why I had to be this way. But it wasn't even huge mistakes I made, I was just unforgiving of my self. I was unforgiving of myself of being unattractive to myself, I was unforgiving of myself of being socially awkward and not knowing how to speak loudly or boldly enough, I was unforgiving of myself of not being able to be open, I was unforgiving of myself of not being simpler, I was unforgiving of being too simple, I was unforgiving of not knowing enough, I was unforgiving of other peoples projection of my short comings, people who always assumed I wasn't as intelligent as or as worthy as. 

But today I am forgiving and today I am appreciative of both my strengths and weaknesses. I am delightfully horrible with directions and that's okay, I am kind of bad at communicating my emotions, and that's okay. I take slight joy in being able to annoy my friends without the gnawing feeling that they would stop being my friends. I take ridiculous joy in being able to fight with people. Like genuinely fight with people because I have standards of how I want to be treated. Imagine that, I have rules about myself now. No one can do or be how they want to be to me, if I disagree or am uncomfortable, I will call you out. I can't express how much of an amazing freedom that is.