While skimming through multiple social networking sites this morning, I started to get a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. It's a sinking feeling that I've gotten every now and then for as long as I can remember. The sinking feeling that slowly bubbles, churns, and spews up feelings of worthlessness and insecurity. Acidic feelings that weigh your body down and eat away at your self image.
If there's one thing that I've learned in my early 20s, it's that every community, no matter who you are, has situations that cause this feeling in it's members. Of course there's not being thin enough. Or being smart enough. Or rich enough. But what about the alternative communities? What happens when you're not fat, hairy, and masculine enough? What happens when you're not queer, ecofriendly, or left-wing enough? What happens when you're not the mold that your community has set forth for you to be? Going against the very community that may have been there for you to thrive in can also be the driving force for insanity.
Every case is different. I know that there are people out there that can say that they're in love with themselves. They wouldn't change anything for anything - they know that who they are is who they were meant to be, and it drives them.
What about the rest of us? For some of us, self confidence is fleeting. It comes and goes. It's completely proportional to your pant size, bulge of your wallet, or number of friends on Facebook. Why is it that for some of us, it's always just out of hands reach?
A couple years ago, I knew that I had done it. I had achieved the notoriety (as well as the confidence) that was rightfully mine. People knew me, I was in the middle of the everything, and it was nice knowing that I had a 'family' that I could count on. Fast forward a year, when all that is stripped away. Those that were believed to be my livelihood are gone, and when I look back on that life I can't seem to remember who was living it. When those people left, did they take my sense of belonging, of self love with them? Was my feeling validation attached to select people, giving them the right to take it away should they feel that I wasn't worthy any more? It's still shocking to me that I may have gave people that ability so easily, and now I have to fight to get it back. I have to fight to feel like I'm worth someone's time, like I'm worth someone's life. I have to fight to feel that I can stand up to the most attractive, the most successful, the most popular.
Or, on the other hand, are some of us destined to be the docile guys that sulk in the corners and feel that churning feeling in our stomach whenever someone we deem 'better' than ourselves enters the room? Knowing that I'm still young and have time to find how this works isn't enough for me. I don't want to feel this anymore, and I don't believe that I should have to. I'm waiting for the day when things click, and I find my beauty inside. Searching for what feels like an entertinity can be more than exhausting.
If you don't love yourself, how the hell are you supposed to love someone else?
That may be true, but how do you complete step one?
Funny that this is my first post in a couple of years.
1 comment:
so much easier said than done, but one *must* remember that those we deem "better" than ourselves have self-images too. the person in the center of attention can be as miserable as the one leaning against the wall. like you, I've been in both of those places, the one where I'm the life of the party and where I'm struggling in the margins.
I think the love (though it is as fleeting for me as it is for anyone) comes from the little things we tell ourselves, even when we're alone. even if it feels like a lie. sometimes, you literally have to fake it till you make it. learn to believe the good things people say about you. learn to know that the bad things are coming from a place of hurt on the part of those saying them.
know that you have people who have your back, and keep your chin up m'dear.
xoxoxo
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