Twice in the past couple weeks, Wendy has said something self-deprecating about herself, then said, "Not that you worry about that."
Excuse me for a moment. ...HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
I am basically a walking ball of insecurities held together by super strength self-consciousness. I am acutely aware of (what I think) people are thinking of me. I have definitely matured in some ways. For instance, I know that people are not staring at my zit or my frizzy hair the way I assume they are. And I know that if they are, they are probably thinking, "oh thank goodness, she has crazy hair/zits! SO DO I!" while I'm not noticing their frizzy hair or zits, so.
But even though I don't freak out about that as much, I'm still bound by these stupid thoughts of, "Was I funny? Why did no one laugh? Was that a pity laugh? Should I cross my legs now? Is that making my thigh fat stick out? I should suck in my stomach! Do they think I'm spacing out and not listening to them? I should widen my eyes and nod."
Sometimes I think my life is just one big performance, and it is kind of exhausting.
When I was in my angsty teenage poetry stage, I wrote a poem about wearing masks. That is still the case, though I've chosen just one that I wear most of the time in public: One in which I'm confident and breezy and always happy. I think I hope that if I pretend to be that way often enough, it will really become who I am.
Fake it til you make it. I have crazy hair and zits. I'm almost 30.
ReplyDeleteDusty would just tell you that you weren't funny, and yes it was a pity laugh.
I laugh because you said self-deprecating about herself.
And when I read all of this to Dusty, including my comment, I quickly said, "I think my comment is stupid." See. There I go being concerned about what people are going to think about what I'm writing as a comment in your blog, for goodness sake! So I will leave my stupid comment, and you can laugh at me, too. I think that is the best way to live. Just call people out on their stupidity, and laugh at them, and they can do the same to you. Then we'd all laugh all the time because we're all mostly always stupid, and then no one would be self-conscious (about themselves...) because everyone would readily acknowledge their stupidity, ergo it would no longer be stupid, but yet the norm. Hold on...I don't want stupidity to become the norm. I want accepting people's foibles to be the norm.
Aw, man...did I just dig myself into a hole? I will leave it because it will prove my goal of allowing myself to not be perfect all the time.
What I see in your comments is just what you called it, insecurity. I used to be that way too, and still am to some degree, but not very much anymore. That is one of the advantages of getting older, you finally realize that 1) people are usually not really thinking about you, and 2) it doesn't matter one whit even if they are. Once you realize this, life becomes a lot easier, and even public speaking is not hard.
ReplyDeleteI've always been fascinated by how many attractive women don't know they are attractive. They worry about their hair, or dress or comment or whatever. Pay a lady a compliment and invariably she will say "Thank you, but you really don't mean that.."
Trisha, you are an attractive lady with many fine qualities, remember that when the insecurity bubbles to the surface. Your image of yourself is not what others have. People that matter do not see crazy hair and zits. They see a nice lady with many fine talents, and a gifted writer to boot. So there!
Jennie, I liked your "stupid" comment, which i did not think was stupid. And that is why I love Dusty. He is painfully honest in hilarity. But you're right, I want to be the sort of person who can be confident without faking it, but since I'm not, I might as well work on it until I am.
ReplyDeleteTommy, thank you. I talked with my Sunday School girls about looks and self-image a couple weeks ago, and I think the problem is that generally, women are very comparative. We might be attractive, but we only see how our one friend has BETTER hair or SKINNIER arms, and we ignore our own good qualities. It also doesn't help that we live a society/world that tells us that as women, we are only as good as our attractiveness. It's a lot of pressure.