Living through half of our lives we are someone and then maybe a change comes along, or we fail and wither away. We are who we think we are and we think we know. But how often are we not who we are supposed to be?  Meh, I know, sounds totally “Duh!”

Sure, I can’t speak for everyone. I like to generalize my musings. Because it makes me feel less guilty? Or maybe because I want to sound neutral? I don’t know. Writing about myself in first-person seems so self-centred to me, and at the same time I like reading when other write about themselves. A massive weirdo, much?

I was told once I was a self-centred bitch. By a drunk stranger. In a bar I had never been to before. He sat down in my table, uninvited and started yelling at me for being in the bar and not at home reading books. Naturally I started laughing. I probably own more books than the fucker has ever read in his life. But he just kept on insisting that I was self-centred and … it made me cautious ever since. Maybe he was sent by my dead relatives from the Otherside to “teach me a lesson”? To tell me not to get too cocky? Is that strange to even think so?

Anyway, trying to please my “how you seem to others”-radar has been a wee bit restraining. It’s a constant row of questions and inner monologues. “Can I do that?”, “Can I say this?” “How should I sit/walk/act/live?” The only thing I have ever truly had as a true me are my other thoughts. So, you can imagine it’s pretty busy “up there”. The constant “Oh yea, me likey” versus “Crap, that’s not a great idea”

I am often jealous of people who do exactly what they want because they don’t care how they are perceived. I am often jealous of people who are so confident in themselves that it looks like arrogance. But it’s that winning ingredient, isn’t it? It’s the juice of life! That arrogance. That “I will do it, because I know it works and you ain’t got jack shit to say that will change my mind!” arrogance.

The silent awakening of myself has been a never-ending process. I have learned in my life to value myself. Never to lower my graces, if you will, to someone who doesn’t see me higher than a blade of grass. It’s empowering to know that I would gladly flip off a person who once made you ME feel like a puppet on a string. (((See? I turned the sentence around from talking about me to YOU being the puppet? What the hell is wrong with me? It’s like I have taken it upon myself to be this “perfect, no bad things ever happens to me”-person? Why?))) It would give me utter satisfaction. Yet, I also believe that it’s a waste of time. It’s always the suffering side of the “tango” that keeps those memories with them. If I went to the person to flip them off it would only satisfy me. And it would also mean that they win! It means their power-play worked. It would mean they scarred us the way they wanted. It would show them that I never moved on while they hadn’t given me an extra moment’s worth of consideration. I know that now!

I have learned that being myself has always made me happiest, even when most of the people and “friends” around me didn’t “approve”. Needless to say, those people are not in my life anymore.

I don’t know how others see me. Do they think I have a lot of friends? Do they think I am a self-centred bitch or a scaredy-cat? And after years of stubbornly telling myself that I should not care, I am starting to listen to my advice. Because what I do know is, that lately, I can feel a different confidence growing in me and I like it. It feels like freedom. It feels like I am a human and I am allowed to certain temptations. I am allowed to choose. We all are. And we should.because this is the only way for the wrong people in your life to just bounce away, and the only way the right people will find their path to you and you to them. It’s magical!