"You are yourself. You own yourself."
Notes to Self are long-form journal entries posted in full. See Seven Yrs Ago for excerpt threads one and thread two. Read Hold in My Headlock which discusses this entry. I was 20 in late 2013.
I am less than impressed with myself. Here’s a dumb list of dumb things that have been bugging me [implied]:
My attitude
My ingratitude
Hypocriticism
Here’s the thing: my life is great. Really. I am slowly becoming the person I’ve always wanted to be, comfortable with things, chill with everything, my own person etc. I have great friends who I can lean on when needed and who lean on me back, and I can have interesting experiences and conversations with. I am surrounded by lovely people who are friendly and seem to admire/appreciate how I am or whatever I do. I meet more and more of these people every day—new people and potential friends a lot. I’m not as stressed out about architecture as before and I have a decent design and idea. When it comes down to the wire, I can make it work and not crack as easily as before. Of course, it’s only been the 1st week, but still.
Here’s a problem (considering I have so many ridiculous ones that I don’t know if it’s the main one): I feel like I don’t want any of it. My life is great and full of great people and this week, I’ve just wanted to be alone. Unnoticed. It’s like I miss the anonymity and the oneness. I think that’s because that’s how it’s always been for me, and truthfully then, it was definitely unwillingly self-imposed by my crippling shyness and painful self-consciousness. Now that I’m getting (working on at least) some backbone and impelling myself to talk to people…. I guess it’s just funny to me now that people actually want to talk to me. That people like me. It’s not that neither of those things haven’t happened before, it’s more like not at this high a volume and not as apparent to me. Which is when the ingratitude kicks in.
Why should any of the before… compel me to be alone? Maybe it’s that though I’m not as repressedly quiet anymore, I’m still incredibly self-conscious and now others’ attentions to me only enhance it. I think it’s also ironically to do with the result of that discreet mantra I tell myself to live by: “Be the change you want to see in the world” – Gandhi. I’m finally doing that! And that makes me happy! Except not, cause I’m not used to being happy. And I think I developed some sort of fucked up way of thinking that I need a challenge or a struggle to overcome to feel good and that I’m progressing. Like “You gotta feel the lowest lows to get the highest high” (Wax)—which translates into my banged up processor as “Look for shit in your life, so you can beat it.” Self-improvement isn’t bad, but purposely looking for what’s wrong with you all the time isn’t good either. I want to tell myself that
It’s okay to relax.
It’s okay to be happy.
An example of how I don’t follow that is yesterday when I woke up early, got decent stuff done for studio, finished an hour early for the first time and was still thinking that something has to be wrong for this to happen. What is that? This brand of pessimism? Sometimes I comfort myself by saying that the pessimism protects me and my emotions, like being happy and then being shot down suddenly is worse than being permanently discontent, then being pleasantly and joyously surprised every once in a while. True, I get these merry highs, but yeah, why not be generally happy? Or at least chipper? The only thing wrong really objectively is my attitude. I should thank my lucky stars for all that have and am slowly channeling to. And relax along the way.
It’s funny; this was going to be some long complaint about people, but really I/you can’t change people and often situations too, but you can change your attitude. But before I discuss that, I think I should get it out now instead of letting it linger more in my head.
As great as the friends and friendships I’ve made this summer I just wish…. I wish they wouldn’t admire me as much. I know it’s a double assholish thing to say, but 1) I don’t necessarily deserve to be admired that much and 2) Even if I did…. Like that Gandhi quote, I’m glad I’m slowly becoming what I want to see in the world and I think it’s great that people see that too. Really. Because “it takes one to know one;” if you can recognize it, you probably have it in you.
Which is wonderful!
Emphasis on the wonderful!
BUT [Big But] if what I’m doing is inspiring people (good lord, listen to me put me and the word inspiring in a sentence, geez I need to balance this ego and putting down myself better to a healthy middle) THEN I want it to inspire people not to be me, but to be themselves. I feel bad saying this and thinking this, but especially my closer girlfriends now like Kelli, Rae, Eva and Winona [lesser extent now, Bless her], it’s like they’ll do what I do. Or go where I go or just in general follow what I do.
Which, I’ll be honest, I hate.
There are so many nice idiosyncrasies about them that WHY IN THE WORLD would they follow me? Why follow anyone??? But that’s the thing! People are social creatures! Hence the internet, hence social media, hence age old peer pressure. And that’s how we learn, and often in a good way!
But it’s like… I just want to be myself. And I want others to own themselves too. I don’t want to be the queen of the island of misfit toys—a self-given title that I hate myself for.
Be your own queen.
Be your own leader.
I admit that I have never been the leader type, but I haven’t been much of a follower either. Now I should be comfortable with saying that I am a leader [did I mention this is also a run-on diatribe on my nonexistent self-confidence] BUT I don’t want followers! I want friends who do what they want, who are their own Battlestar Galactica commanders! Or whatever! But I digress….
Unfortunately I am also a hypocrite as I constantly STILL compare myself in my head to others, especially Jason. I always have to check and reassure myself that I’m not trying to be him. I don’t really think I am, but it makes me wonder because I really do think his life is perfect and I would love for mine to be like that too. Sometimes I wonder if I’m doing things because that’s what he does or if that’s just me doing what I want to do. Again, I think I’m overthinking it and am really doing the 2nd thing, but it’s like one of those
intervening
undeterred
thoughts
where it just creeps into my mind and stays there to make me somewhat miserable.
Really!
NICOLE (Cue letter to myself), there are soooooooooooooo many things that you liked and wanted to be before you met him. And way before you did anything with him that they are your things too. I know it’s a hard line to find between what you like and what he likes but perhaps you have to think of these as what brought you guys together, just as people, rather than a product of your time together.
You’ve loved rap!
You’ve loved street art!
You’ve loved comic books!
You’re practically a boy!
And that skateboard thing you did was out of practicality and proving to yourself that you can do it [and bravo you are] and not him bc even though you know that was his thing, you always thought it was kind of street snobby, [skateboarders think they’re all cool and shit and I don’t want to be that way but I’m afraid I slowly am stop me]. YOU did it because you wanted to for yourself. Remember.
Also that street art sticker job gig? That was a godsend. There was no thought of impressing him when you first applied—you just need a job and Zarathustra blessed you with Craigslist. Literally. So
what
I’m
trying
to tell you
is
You are yourself.
You own yourself.
You’re lucky that you can do that and that you are doing that.
So relax, and believe that it is okay to be happy.
As best as you can.
And as for the people you were talking about, remind them that they’re special in their own ways too. And don’t look down on them because they’re following you—you’re not in any position and never will be to disrespect another human being and they may not know that they’re doing that.
And don’t run away.
From yourself.
From other people.
You can be so great. And for once, people need you and you really do need them. So go out. And do what you can. You have everything you need to do it all. Take care.