All About Me (Yep, again)

 I have always LOVED writing about myself. Why? I don't know, but I think it has something to do with the fact that I'm a social anxious extrovert? So a huge part of me wants to put myself out there and be known and heard, but I have crazy amounts of anxiety around people. Writing seems like a safer way to put myself out there, or at least pretend I'm putting myself out there. I also think that maybe growing up the oldest of eight kids left me feeling kind of...invisible? That on top of being totally socially anxious at school, where I also felt invisible, might be reasons why I like to write about who I am. 

It's also been such a life long quest for me to figure out who I even am. I am still on this journey. When I was younger I remember people always asking me why I was so quiet. And I distinctly remember at some point in my childhood a peer telling me I had "no personality." Which, well, to them I didn't. I was just that girl who never talked and was awkward. Bless my little socially anxious self. I wish I could hug her and say it is okay, you are struggling with something they don't understand and really no one in your life understands....but I digress. 

Maybe it was that moment, maybe sooner or later, but somewhere around that time I really decided I wanted to figure out who I was. As a grew up and moved around (I'm from a military family) I tried on different personalities for size. I remember being shamed for all of them in one way or another. If I was too quiet, I needed to be more bold and confident. If I was loud and silly, I needed to be more mature and have more "quiet dignity" as someone literally told me one time. I could never get it right.

But I could never get it right because I listened too much to what other people said about me and believed them all when they told me about the way I should be. I looked outward to be told who I was, instead of trusting my own heart and inner voice. 

And after 36 years (ish) of doing this, I'm tired of it. I'm at a point where I really WANT to shed everyone else's ideas about who I should be and how I should act. I'm not a total relativist, I believe there are good things and bad things out there, but I think that all humans at our deepest level are GOOD. And I am at a point where I want to believe that of myself and stop feeling the need to mold and change myself like a chameleon to make other people like me or give me a sense of my worth.

Wow this is not going where I thought it would go. I thought I was going to talk about how I am almost 37, I have 3 darling kiddos, I work as a preschool teacher, and I'm married to an appliance repair man and we live in rural (ish/growing) Utah County. I thought I was going to tell you how I feel like I'm very liberal because I live in an extremely conservative area, or that I am an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day saints who feels internally unorthodox and quite agnostic as of late. (But, I still feel like I'm an agnostic THEIST not an agnostic ATHEIST. The difference being that I believe in God and hope for one, I just don't know. Instead of an agnostic atheist who does not believe in God or hope for one but agrees that it's impossible to really know-Sorry, yes another tangent. You'll find I do this a lot.) I thought I'd tell you that I've been diagnosed with anxiety and depression, and I have a feeling I may also have ADHD and some other undiagnosed stuff going on. That's what I had in my mind when I wrote "all about me" in the subject line above.

But I guess I have so much more to say than those basic things of "who I am". I guess I am so much more complex and detailed than the little blurb above can convey. And at the end of the day, I don't really have a good grasp on who I am. Maybe because who I am is still evolving. I'm still trying to pull of the labels that others have put on me and I've clung to throughout the years. I'm still getting to know myself. I'm still learning the difference between who "they" say I am and who I really am or who "they" say I should be. 

I am rambling now. I should probably call it a night but it feels so good to write again. Even if (and maybe especially because) it's just for myself. I think that the best all about me will be this blog. Hopefully as I write openly, honestly, and consistently (this is the hardest for me) I will come to know myself better. And then maybe others can get to know the true me too. That's the goal in the end, is for me to know myself, love myself, and be myself as authentically as possible. And I do hope that as I do that, I'll be able to help others do the same. Because while I am writing for the love of it, I also deeply love helping others and that is something about me that has been consistent throughout my life. So yes, I'm on this writing journey to help myself and to enjoy something I once loved again. But if I can heal so I can help others heal, that would be the greatest joy to me.