Breathe

Truism: There is a first time for everything. New things, first things, are most of all frightening, and second of all-wonderful.
My newest new? My first?
Giving myself a chance.
I have this annoying habit of giving myself very little leeway to be a human being. I am restrained, strict, and hard on myself. Some people see me as critical, but the one person I am most critical of, is myself. Compliments have always been hard for me to hear, and change is made all that more difficult. Change is barely a smooth or flawless process, and any mistakes that come up-well, I've always blamed myself. It isn't the most pleasant outlook, to be sure.

Now, I'm letting myself breathe.
I'm letting myself see things in a different light. I can take compliments, and, more importantly, have the confidence to see my own strengths. That, in itself, has been beautiful enlightenment. By being able to see my real strengths, even through the eyes of people who actually CAN see them, I'm figuring out goals and career paths and my life. It's been not only eye opening, but genuinely important. It's terrible to think about how easily I could've skipped this part, and ended up chasing a dream I don't even have.

I'm also allowing myself to trust people again. I really stopped doing that for a while, after getting hurt, after building a wall. Even further than that, I am allowing second chances-both for myself, and for other people. This summer has changed me, and I have changed. It all feels like a second chance, to have the life I really want. I've never felt this...alive. It isn't always happiness (sometimes it is misery), but it IS always right and always invigorating and infuriating and powerful inspiration. I care more than I ever have, about my own creativity and about the needs of others. I CARE. Maybe too much.

And that's my third chance. I am not cool. At all. I'm not aloof, I don't withhold the love, I don't pretend nonchalance. If I'm happy to see you, I will show it. I think, for this year, I was trying to be "cool" and impersonal...to save face? to seem important? Who can know, but I am so past that. I hope that my friends can love and accept this, because enthusiasm, in a genuine way, is my thang. It'll be easier this way, guys-if I like it, you'll know. If I don't, you'll know. Easy, right?

Breathe. Easy, right?