This is a difficult blog post to write because it is very personal.  Sometimes I wonder if the posts I make aren’t too personal, but really, in a lot of ways, I am willing to share a lot about myself if someone asks.  I consider myself a pretty open person.  Sure, there are plenty of things that people don’t know about me, but the only real reason I don’t share those things is because of the person listening and knowing that they are different than me and feeling like they probably wouldn’t understand.  It’s not because I don’t want to be open with people.

I know I’ve posted on here about my difficulties sometimes since my dad died.  I mean, I don’t know that that’s where it starts, or that there even really is a starting point.  I could look at it as having started before that if I chose to – my grandparents both died a few years before my dad.  I remember once going to the Indy Star website and searching for my dad’s obituary only to realize that my grandpa’s came up as well (my dad was a “Jr”).  Then less than two years before my dad died, one of my best friends for the last ten years or so basically had a heart attack and wound up in the hospital in a coma.  He survived and made a full recovery, thankfully, but then about a month later my cousin had something similar happen and did not survive.  Then about six months after that, my uncle passed away as well.  And only a few weeks after my dad died last year, I lost another cousin to breast cancer.  ALL of these family members I would consider close.  I do have family that I rarely see, but these were all people that I grew up with and remember very well.  I could go into each one of my relationships with all of these people so you could see what I mean, but that’s not what this post is really about.

It’s not all just death that has affected me.  I tend to really feel things when stuff goes on with my friends, and there has been miscellaneous drama there that I won’t go fully into.  People I considered family went through things and went their separate ways.  Friends betrayed friends.  People that I considered friends and sought after for friendship denied it.  I guess all of these things have affected me more than I’m sometimes willing to admit.  I just really hate playing the victim.  I don’t want to say “oh, look what I’m going through” because I know there is always someone out there going through something worse.  So I mostly just take it all on myself, deal with my feelings on my own as they come.

So where has this left me?  Wow, what a loaded question.  And a tricky one to answer.  I’ve made some mistakes.  I’ve taken on some new things.  Grad school has been more difficult than expected at times.  All of this death, drama with friends, my own mistakes, and my own shortcomings have left me feeling very unworthy.  Worthless, pretty much.  Don’t get me wrong, I know deep down I’m not.  And sometimes I believe it.  But the slightest thing can set me off, leave me feeling like I’m nothing.  I can’t seem to battle it very well, and it has caused me off and on periods of depression for a while now.  I seem to just see all the things I do wrong – I’m not good enough at work, I’m not good enough at school, I’m not a good enough friend, I’m not a good enough girlfriend, my house isn’t clean enough, my body’s not skinny enough… I could go on for a while.

I saw a counselor for a few weeks, something offered from my school.  It helped a little having someone to talk to, but 1) it was awkward telling everything to someone that didn’t really know me, and 2) I always seemed to go in on the days I was feeling good and they wondered why I was even there, and 3) on the one day I wasn’t “on”, I didn’t want to talk and couldn’t explain why I felt down, so that felt awkward too.  I’m taking a break from it for now since my counselor finished her practicum, but I might go back at some point.  We’ll see.

I’m not really sure how this post ends, because I’m still at this part in the story.  I’m still struggling, still feeling not good enough pretty frequently.  I guess I just wanted to share it so my friends might have some idea how I’m feeling.  Deep down, I have plenty of confidence and I know who I am.  But I’m having a hard time keeping a hold on that lately.  So I guess I just write this to ask for your help.  Not your sympathy, really, just your help in remembering who I am.  If I seem like I have it all together, I don’t.  No one does.  We all need support and encouragement sometimes, and reminders of who we really are and what’s good about us.  That’s one thing I learned as a part of Beyond Your Best… that everyone really is some kind of gift to the world, and that a lot of us never see ourselves that way.  I knew it about myself at one point, but now I’m not really feeling it much anymore.  It may sound cheesy, but consider your actions and words, towards anyone… encouraging someone instead of ignoring them or tearing them down might just make a much bigger difference than you realize.

So today I had a pretty crummy day. It started with a toothache that just got increasingly worse as the day went on. Various things at work got frustrating. And then I found out that I did pretty bad on the quiz that I took in my accounting class last night. The same quiz that I studied for Friday night, most of Sunday afternoon, and late into Sunday night as well. Typical day, in a way, basically the culmination of a lot of feelings I’ve had lately.

See, lately I’ve been struggling with feeling like kind of a big failure. At work, at school, at home, in relationships, even just as a person. Same old feelings – I’m not smart enough, don’t work hard enough, not a good enough friend, even that my apartment isn’t as clean or as well-decorated as it should be. It just seems like lately every piece of feedback I get regarding, well, everything, is negative. Or at least it’s mostly the negative feedback that I seem to be able to see right now.

So as today continued to get progressively worse – these negative things started to affect me less somehow. Maybe it was just because my day was pretty crummy already, but I started to see some of the negative things as just feedback. Learning experiences. And then I started to look at my failures in a different way. Like my accounting quiz – sure, I failed it. But I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t tried. If I hadn’t decided to get my MBA, if I hadn’t applied and gotten accepted to the MBA program at IUPUI, I wouldn’t have failed this quiz. So instead of being evidence that I was a failure, what it meant was that I hadn’t been afraid to fail. If I had stayed in my comfort zone and never gone back to school and instead let fear of failure keep me from it, it would never have happened. That was a really cool thing to me, as I’ve always been one to not want fear of failure to keep me from living my life and my dreams.

I didn’t lose anything from it – my quiz grade wasn’t bad enough to keep me from passing my class, I can bring my grade up. So all it really was was a bump along the way. And as for my self-confidence and self-worth issues lately… I got to thinking about those and discussing them with a friend today. See, the thing is – I’ve known deep down from a young age (probably about 4 years old when my parents were already bragging about my reading ability to people) that I’m pretty smart and capable. And I think my self worth issues come more from me holding myself to a really high standard than really thinking that I’m worthless. But here’s the thing… I’ve been used to being able to get through my world and what I do with relative ease. I’ve never had problems in school or in life, really… I’m smart and capable and I have always taken on things that I can handle.

But now, here I am. This year has been full of a lot of changes, a lot of new things. A new job. A new boyfriend. Starting graduate school. And losing my father. And I’ve come to the conclusion that a part of my struggle with self-confidence and self-worth lately is really just a part of me growing. I’m taking on new things, bigger things, and they’re not always as easy as some of the other things have been. Sure, I can handle these new, bigger things too, they’re just more outside of my box and I have to learn what it’s like to take them on. It’s not always easy, and I will likely fail along the way. And yeah, it’s definitely enough to shake one’s confidence momentarily. But it also helps me grow.

I mean…

Getting a graduate degree is not as easy as getting an undergrad.

And the job I have now is not as easy as the jobs I have had in the past.

And living life without a dad is not as easy as living life with one.

A phrase that I remember from my days in Beyond Your Best is about being “out on the skinny branches”. It basically just means getting outside of your comfort zone and putting yourself out there. Not being afraid to fail. Letting yourself fail in order to grow. Taking on new things that are harder than the things you’ve done in the past. Not just staying in the same place or in the place that is comfortable. And that’s what I want to do – grow. Mentally, emotionally, and as a person.

So – be it things that I have chosen to change or things that I have no control over that have yet forced me to grow… here’s to failure, as a result of being out on the “skinny branches”.