beginnings…

i am sitting here at my desk, enjoying a lavender tea and trying to avoid boredom. i also may be at work.

either way, my mind, as it does, has wandered to “what if”s. i spend lots of time writing to myself - sometimes journaling (although it’s a task i’ve found to be immensely difficult to habitualize), and most of the time, in various blurbs and run-on paragraphs that i perpetually lose and then find again, months or years later.

also, as it happens, i am no stranger to a blog. i’ve been a happy consumer to many (especially for recipes), and have authored a few anonymous projects on tumblr. combine those convenient hobbies with my endless desire to ramble on and on and have a place to look over it all… and here we are.

i’m not quite sure i’ll stick with it. i sincerely hope i do.

today, i have a blemish on my face, and i have spent the entirety of the day watching in horror as my makeup melts away from it. it struck me just now how silly it is that i am so worried about it. i cannot pretend that i have never had blemishes before, or that i will somehow magically never have one again. it’s funny to realize that what i’m doing by fixating on it and trying to hide it is just trying to pretend that i’m not flawed.

obviously a bit of a jump. but the bottom line is still there. i spend so much time overtaken with anxieties and fears that all cook down to the same ugly truth: i am terrified at the knowledge that i am not perfect. i am constantly trying to avoid the possibility that someone might see that i have flaws. because, if i am flawed, and if they know it… i’m toast.

on a deeper level, and to put more words to the feeling - i think that my worst fear is being seen for who i truly am. once people see you for who you are, it is out of your control how they react. and not having control is terrifying. because what if they see the truth and they are disgusted? what if i am not enough?

i am trying to accept those thoughts - not that they are true, but that i have them and that it is okay. and i am trying to remember that i am not the only one who has, and who does, feel this way. i’m trying to listen to my own thoughts as if they’re being told to me by my child, or by my 5 year old self. turns out that when you listen to yourself from a place of love and compassion, it is much easier to hear how skewed and blatantly untrue these fears are.

my old therapist would be doing cartwheels if she knew i was actually using the tools she gave me.

when i think about it, it’s like having a nightmare. during it, when it’s being experienced and felt, it is real, and it is the most terrifying monster in the world. when you wake up, perhaps gasping and heaving, the immediate instinct is to shove it down, try to forget it, and go back to sleep once your breathing has evened out. but there is nothing like the relief of talking about it, out loud, to someone else, maybe right then, or maybe later once the sun has risen. nothing neutralizes the power of a nightmare more than bringing it to light (pun intended). once you start talking about it, maybe it starts to sound very silly and not nearly as scary as it was.

as a side note: my recurring nightmare when i was younger was that the giant fib (from Larry Boy and the Fib from Outer Space, of course) was peering into my window with its giant, bulbous eyes. nothing even really happened. i always woke up before he could reach a hand in.

perhaps that is also the same fear i’m describing at the beginning of this post. perhaps it has always been the same: perhaps i have always been afraid to be seen.

no longer. here’s to beginnings!