The Begining Of A Begining . . .

I often get told that I am strong, courageous, beautiful, and a great parent. Even more often I feel I am none of these things, not even a comical misrepresentation.

Is it really important to be these things or even feel that you are these wonderful adjectives? It isn’t that I don’t understand some of the things I have survived and accomplished are out of reach for some people. It is more that I feel I can always do better. My little monster that constantly tells me I am not good enough.

Here’s the real kicker, I don’t even know whose measure I’m holding myself up to. What makes the things I do, love, and conquer subpar? I rarely stop myself to think about whom holds this impossibly long measuring tape I constantly attempt to surpass.

So I sit here and I ask my questions and rant my rages to anonymous few that dare to dip into my head. Tonight I feel as if I have found a little bit of clarity. The answer is I have become my mother. I was never good enough or successful enough for her tastes. I do not do things as they should be done or as they are socially expected. In turn that voice pecks at my already chemically imbalanced brains.

It isn’t that I haven’t come to terms with my abnormal personality or my overly whimsical views on every day. I most certainly embrace my ability to be delicately blunt and aggressively humorous. In fact I am so at ease with myself I can’t remember the last time I felt like I hated myself. I know at one point I did. I love myself. I love being a fat girl with huge curly hair. I love that I’m weird, liberal, conservative, self-centered, giving, logical, and fanciful all at once.

Then someone says “You are so strong.” and I lose my shit. How dare they? What do they know? If I am strong I wouldn’t cry all the time. Maybe in the end the statement doesn’t enrage me because I am not strong, but because it makes me accept that maybe I am good enough. That despite my self-perceived short comings and hyper critical nature I am more than that weird fat girl with the big hair. Maybe I wear my size and weirdness as a badge to stave away some inward need to measure up. If I embrace my flaws and never admit to being more than a short coming I cannot be wounded.