Someone who I have grown quite close to over the past year had a very deep conversation with me today. More like I broke down and they responded with an answer that I already knew, but was unwilling/unable to accept. Over the past SEVERAL years Rene as I once knew her has dissipated into someone who I look at in the mirror and do not even recognize. I mean, physically it is me, but when I look at myself, or think about my life and decisions… its like meeting a complete stranger. In fact it has gotten to a point lately that I can’t even remember who I thought I once was, let alone who I am now.
Growing up I was not popular, I was the opposite of popular. If popular was the North Pole, I was hanging out with the penguins at the South Pole in a tuxedo I can now admit was tremendously low self-esteem. As I got older, I’d like to say that I shook off that view of myself and meandered my way a little closer to the equator. I’d like to say that. Truth is I spent my late teens learning how to fake it. So when, in my early twenties, I found people that I made laugh and WANTED to be around me, I thought I was happy. And at times I was. But it was fleeting, because any time I had to spend with the real me I would let down the fake airs I had created and be lost again (until the morning)!
That last paragraph is going to throw some people off. They were a part of my life then and they would, to this day, in fact at this moment, not believe that I wasn’t in control and on top of the world. But I wasn’t. I was still sitting at the South Pole wondering how people could walk around so easily and carefree. This constant obsession with EVERYONE ELSE was extremely tiring and by the time I was in my mid-twenties I was too tired to go on living that way.
So I gave up. I became a person that lived by the mantra “Love me or hate me, WHATEVER!” That worked out for a while and, thinking back now, those were perhaps the happiest and most fulfilling of my days. The only problem with that was I still didn’t REALLY know me. And really, how silly is it to tell some one they have to decide to love me or hate me if I have yet to define who “me” is?
I am learning that this progression is something that you cannot avoid forever. (You can avoid it, apparently, for at least 28 years!) At some point though, it starts to make you crazy… and indeed I have reached that point. Relationships falling apart, business suffering and worst of all, being on an EMOTIONAL ROLLERCOSETER.
This is not a I-woke-up-today-and-my-world-fell-apart moment. This is a I-have-been-screaming-on-the-inside-for-what-seems-like-eternity moment. And I have been contemplating now for weeks, months even, on how to remove myself from this “funk” as I have so lazily named it.
So today, when I candidly explained to my friend that I felt like I was filled with The Nothing (a Never Ending Story reference - the nothing was this black cloud that chased the main character and took over the world sucking all of the light and happiness from it) … I know, a bit melodramatic right? But it is the only way I can describe what it feels like inside. The Nothing. Even if I am graced with a moment of happiness, if I try to internalize it, The Nothing gets it… and then its just gone.
Right, so. I sit and I ask myself, how do I get better? How do I bring myself back? The truth is, as I was so explained today, I need to figure out who I am. And my first challenge is to find a “quiet place” to be alone with myself (God is on the invitation too) and dig deeply into the definition of me.
Let me be clear I am writing this now not to get people to feel bad for me (DO NOT FEEL BAD FOR ME) and not to make people think that I am suicidal (I AM NOT SUICIDAL) instead I want to reach out and share. I am certain that someone out there is feeling the same way (at least similarly) as I am/have been… to you I say this: you are NOT alone. I have believed that I was alone for a LONG time now. I may not have much to give right now… but I am here. I am with you. I understand, and although the time may not be right now… one day soon you will be ready for a change. You will be ready to become the you that you are destined to be… and this is my story (to show you it IS possible) of ME becoming ME…
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