You Are Who You Are (or Quarter-Life Crisis)

I want to write in order to say something. I know, that sounds redundant, but what I mean is, I don't want to just put words down, I want to SAY something with those words. Something that has meaning. More often than not, I feel like I'm repeating the same things over and over again, using different words to say those same things over and over.

I say that because I want to talk about finding a niche, finding a place, finding a spot in the pecking order, and I'm sure I'll say things I've said before. (See, I just excused the thing I'm about to do so that you can't get mad.)

This is my last full semester in school. After this, I never have to go back and pay for a class, do homework, stress about a paper not being written in time or well enough. All of that will be behind me. It's freeing to think about. And terrifying.

You might say 

I'm beginning to feel the early stages of a quarter-life crisis coming on.

It's like I'm stuck between being a really big kid, and a really little grown up. In the course of a year I'll have gone from being a young woman in school to a slightly older married woman searching for a career-job to help support her family. No longer dependent on mom and dad. On her own two feet. Finding her own way instead of waiting for someone else to tell me where to step.

It's terrifying.

But, I can handle that. I can handle the terrifying. I can handle the unknown. I can handle the transition between childhood and adulthood, as far as responsibility goes. What I'm getting stuck on is finding my niche.

I know. That sounds silly. But I can't help it.

I'm an adult and still find myself watching other girls and thinking "If I was as tall as her, or if my hair was as long as hers, or if my hair was the color of hers, I'd be good to go." Or I look at other girls and think "If I had those jeans, that hat, that shirt, those shoes, that nose, that smile, that body shape, that laugh, that anything-other-than-what-I-have, things would be easier, better."

I talked in my last blog about needing self-love, and I stand by that. This isn't so much about not loving myself (though I will admit that's part of it), but more about not really knowing exactly who I am, or want to be, or should be, yet. That person that I am changes every day, and when I feel lost (such as when my whole life is about to change when school ends and life begins) I start to rely on these superficial things to give me a direction.

I compare myself to everybody. I compare their interests, talents, physical traits, behaviors, goals, blue jeans, everything to mine, and I consistently find mine lacking.

How do we find our niche? 

How do we find our place?

How do we find out who we are?

Who we want to be?

Who we're supposed to be?

Your niche is where you are. There isn't a predetermined place already set aside for you. You are who you are who you are, and that's exactly who you're supposed to be.

Fight or Flight (or Love Yourself)

Before I get to rambling, let me set up what brought all these (possibly) incoherent thoughts on.

I think that's important.

I love my husband more than anyone, and I know that he loves me. In my life a lot of people have loved me, but he's the first that I knew loved me unconditionally, without a question. Despite this unfailing knowing, there are moments, even though we're married, that I worry that maybe he'll want to be with his ex again. Now, if you know me, and you know Vince, you might think that I'm nuts (maybe I am). But I can't shake that feeling every now and again. Despite him telling me over and over that I'm wrong, that he loves me, that he chose to be with me, and marry me, and spend forever with me, there's this irrational part of my brain that won't shut up.

Today, we ran into her twice. That should not be a big deal. Once we saw her, and just went somewhere else to avoid any awkwardness (and my potential weirdness). The second time, we were sitting in Starbucks (like usual), drinking our sugar-free mochas (we love our mochas), and she walked in.

Vince, who is just a true person, immediately begins thinking of ways to make me laugh. He jokes about breaking the window so we can run away. He laughs and squeezes my hand. He stays calm in the midst of what I see as a raging storm, and holds me in place. While he's sitting there, calm and smiling and loving, I'm shaking. My face feels hot, my ears are burning, my skin is tingling, my heart is hitting my sternum so hard I'm sure everyone in the cafe can hear it and see it. I'm shaking. I'm shaking. I'm shaking.

I was in fight or flight mode. No doubt.

He's holding my hand to reassure me and to be sweet. I'm holding his hand because, if I let go, I'll be blown away in the gale force winds that this storm (of my own creation) has just accosted me with. He's my anchor.

Vince goes out of his way to make me feel comfortable in the fifteen minutes we have before he goes on the floor to work. He makes faces, makes silly noises, gives me a kiss, tells me he loves me. And I sit there and smile at him, and shake, and think, I'm not good enough to keep him. He's going to leave me. At one point, I even said, "Please don't leave me." To his credit (because I'm clearly a crazy person), he just smiled and said, "You know that's never going to happen." Calm and sweet and just what I needed.


His ex was in the cafe for fifteen minutes, tops. It felt like hours. She didn't talk to us. She didn't walk near us. She avoided us just like we were avoiding her. Why was I freaking out?

Let's take it one step further. Even if she had come over to talk, or walked nearby. Why would I freak out? 

Do I trust my husband? Completely. 

Do I trust in our marriage? Completely. 

Do I, when I'm not in an overly-emotional, 

self-deprecating state, worry about these things? No.

So clearly, it goes much deeper.

Vince and I talked last night about my insecurities. I have a lot of insecurities. The way I look. The way I think. The way I talk. The way I dress. The talents I have, or don't have, or want but think I'll never get. You name it, I bet I'm insecure about some facet of it. 

When our was all said and done, he said, "I don't think you love yourself."

Man, that hit home. 

That struck a chord in me that I didn't know was there. Or, maybe I knew it was there, and have ignored it for years. I don't love myself. I don't like myself. I don't want to be me.

Except, there are sometimes I like me. I like me when I'm with Vince, and I feel comfortable in my own skin. I like me when he's encouraging me. I like me when he's building me up. But, only there. Never just based on a security within myself. There's something wrong with that. Not wrong with me, (which is what I would normally say, but I'm working on things, so I won't), but something wrong with that.

If I loved myself, I would know that Vince's love for me, Vince's dedication to our marriage, isn't going to be compromised by seeing an ex-girlfriend, or a pretty girl, or an alien, or anything. If I loved myself, I wouldn't feel like every time I go to hold his hand, or hug him, and he's doing something else, that he's rejecting me. (Yeah, I'm that girl.) If I loved myself, I wouldn't feel like everything I do isn't good enough. I would feel good enough if I liked myself. If I loved myself.

If I loved myself, if I had confidence in myself, I wouldn't have reacted that way today. Would it have been a little bit awkward? Of course. When things from your past are presented to you suddenly, without warning, it's awkward. But would it have been that heart-pounding, skin-tingling, shaking, red-faced freak out? No. Because that's not a rational reaction. It's not a wrong reaction (as my brother told me when I asked his advice), but it's not a rational one, either. I wouldn't have immediately thought Vince was going to leave me (which, in retrospect, is ridiculous).

I used to think self-love was selfish. That I should sacrifice everything I could, that I should find every fault I have and poke at it like a bruise, that I should never be proud of my strengths...and I'm not saying now that those things are wrong, but I'm revisiting those ideas, and modifying them.

It's important to love ourselves. 

God created us. God created me. He created me so that I would be five-five, so that I would have blue eyes that weren't quite even, so that I would want to write, so that I could love people, and make good and bad choices. He didn't mess up when he made me. If God loved me enough to create me just the way that he did, why would I hate me?

It's important to find our faults. 

It's equally important not to beat ourselves up about those faults. Should we work to better ourselves? Yes. I think we should work to better ourselves every day (and in so doing, avoid picking at other people, but that's a different blog for a different day), but we should do so in a way that is constructive, and not detrimental. I tend to pick out a flaw, and kick myself over and over and over again until I'm a bloody pile on the floor. Not healthy. Not good. We should pick out a flaw (let's say we talk about people behind their backs, without reason, frequently), and keep that flaw in mind. Instead of hating yourself for not being perfect, we should just work, a little at a time, to do better. Simple as that.

It's important not to be prideful. 

It's also important to recognize when you do something well, and not be afraid to claim it. I'm a pretty good cook. I can write a pretty good story. I'm good at craft things. It shouldn't be hard to say those things, but for me it is. It's hard to admit when I do something well. (I'm always so scared that I'll admit, "I'm good at this!" and someone will think that that's so ridiculous, that they'll point out how wrong I am.) It's healthy to be aware of your strengths, just like it's healthy to work on your weaknesses. Being prideful is something different. Pride leads us to hurt others with that strength. It's important not to be prideful, and it's equally important to admit when you do something right.

As far as I know, everyone except me knows these things. All of the insecurities bubbling within me are screaming for me to say, "but I understand why you'd think I wasn't good at things! I understand if you agree that I should be scared that Vince will leave me because I'm not good enough. I understand if you think I'm not good enough!" I only say this now so that you understand where I'm coming from more thoroughly. These are the things I'm battling. These are the unhealthy things that aren't real. These are the things born from my self-loathing, and the things that have to go.

I wish I could take credit for all of the positive stuff in here. But I can't. Vince has told me these things over, and over, and over again. He tells me every day that he loves me, and that he wishes I could love me like he does. He tells me that I do have strengths, and he tells me that he loves my weaknesses, except when those weaknesses hurt me. He hates that I don't love myself. And if it weren't for him, I wouldn't be writing this. I wouldn't be thinking this. I wouldn't be taking even this small step towards loving me.

He loves me hard enough to protect me from the storm I created today, all because of a fragment from his past. He loves me hard enough to break down my innumerable insecurities into one basic idea that, even though it's huge, doesn't overwhelm me. It's an idea I can think about and digest and work on. He loves me hard enough to tell me when I'm being silly, and to pull me back onto the calm shore where he's standing. And the way that he loves me is just a small reflection of how God loves me. The way God loves every single person on this planet. 

I don't want that fight or flight reaction to happen every time a big insecurity attacks, which is more often than I want to admit. I want to love myself so that, when the potential for that heart-pounding, shaking storm is there, I can hold onto Vince because I'm right there in the calm with him, and not because I have to or I'll be blown away.