Being Me. (I'd like to thank God...)

I’ve got things pretty good at the moment; I finally have a job, I’ve got a new relationship that I’m excited about, I’ve realised just how good and dependable most of my friends are, I’m heading in the right direction again with a change of uni course next year, and it’s Christmas time which means lots of presents for Daley from Santy Claus.

I’m also feeling a lot better. I think I’ve intermittently had a bit of a negative view of myself since around the time high school started. I’m not exactly sure why the start of high school brought with it a change in the way I perceived myself. Maybe it just coincided with being a teenager and developing insecurities as teenagers do; riding that confusing rollercoaster of emotions. Either way, I feel like I’m slowly shrugging off a cumbersome, restrictive cape of negativity (don’t ask me why it’s a cape... I’m not good at metaphors!) and am emerging not anew but afresh with a more positive outlook on myself and what I have to offer the world.

This year’s events, despite being turbulent, have opened my eyes. The source of my increasing levels of self-efficacy (hehe, big word) has been the people in my life. Some are old characters, others are new, some I got to know really well, others only for a moment, but all were important. They all played a role in helping me to realise that I am an interesting, likeable person with the potential to achieve my goals and get what I want from life. Being me has never felt so good. And I owe it to these people who over the past year have taught me (in their different ways) that I’m cool (in my own way). :)

So thank you to everyone I’m thinking of. I won’t list names because I’ll inevitably leave someone out by accident! (This is sounding more and more like an acceptance speech at the Oscars – although I didn’t thank God or Jesus which is standard procedure these days I think, unless you’re Tom Cruise. God forbid he wins another award. Oh looky, I did mention God after all). Long brackets aside, I’m sincerely grateful. I guess your reward is seeing the outcome of your assistance and experiencing a more confident and happy me. :)

That said, here’s a sad poem I wrote the other day:

It’s 9 days before Christmas and all I can see,
Is my uncertain future staring back at me.
My life lacks direction and my motivation is flimsy,
All I have is my pen and several notions of whimsy.

I feel I need to be told ‘cause I can’t figure it out,
What my path, my journey, this life is about.
They say “life is what you make it” but I disagree,
I am the creation of what life has made of me.

So because I’m not whole does that mean I’ve missed out?
Or must I wait for the missing piece of inner peace, I shout;
To the ends of the earth, to heaven, to the skies,
Answer my cries, and to that piece alert my weary eyes.

Completely out of place and contradictory I know, but strangely that’s not the way that I was feeling when I wrote it. I think it’s a good sign that I can distance myself from my actual feelings and ‘feel’ whatever emotion I want, in terms of becoming a writer. Either that or I’m a nutcase. :)

Dale.