Straights becoming Curves

Do you ever feel like life throws so many curve balls at you that you start to expect them so much you aim to hit curve-balls instead of straight ones?

I never thought life was like that for me... but suddenly life's thrown me a straight ball and it's caught me so off guard that it's as if my straight balls are now as effective as curve balls!

I think that life is one of those things we all struggle with in our own ways. 

Sometimes it feels too much though - you know that feeling that just nothing you do is enough? As if you'll never get it quite right, and things will come crumbling down around your ears...

I'm feeling kind of like that right now. 

Life has suddenly thrown a ton of good stuff at me. Long over due in some ways... but I think in all honesty I've just been ignoring the good stuff in life too damn long for me to accept anything good that came my way. 

It started with a new boyfriend. I kinda dove in head first with that one... and my reasons are my own for that... but since then things have just been falling into place.

A job, a way of funding my Masters Degree, a social life, an outlet for my music, good times, travel... it's as if it's all just sprung up out of nowhere, and I just don't know what to do with it all.

There was this sudden realisation not long ago that I've been living my life expecting to never have more than the bare minimum. It's all I've had all my life. A shit area to live in, horrid neighbours, no money, loads of stuff that was all 'found' rather than got from the shop... I'd never even thought about how to have a life and a job at the same time. It suddenly twigged that I have this degree, and a boyfriend, and I don't have to stay here - I don't have to get knocked up to get a house, I don't have to live off benefits, I don't have to never have a holiday. I don't have to be nobody and go nowhere... and it's kind of blown my mind.

After a week in Manchester visiting the boyfriend I came back and found my certificate in a frame hung on my wall. I had to take it down because of what, to me, it symbolises. It symbolises failure to me.... how bad is that?? Completing a degree at university feels like failure because it wasn't a first class degree. That word 'second class' eats me up. Since I can remember it's been drilled into me by teachers, parents, family, friends that I'm the best, that I can do anything, be anything... but I'm not. That certificate isn't just proof of that, it's proof of my own self-destructive defiance of everyone's expectations. Of everyone not pushing me because I was already good enough... and for the openness of their 'options' for me meaning I never dreamt of anything. 

That certificate is a big fuck-you to my life... and if I'm honest, it was done on purpose subconsciously. 

Most people with depression self-harm physically. I'm mental though... so I did it mentally. 

For me, it was about not being good enough... and I think I must have come out through the other side of it all now, because even though I can't see what I'll do with my life yet, there's this hope in me, and this knowledge that it'll all be okay in the end. 

I know that things are going to be better. 

Don't ask how I know, because I'm not sure... but I do. 

For some reason I've started watching The Glee Project... it's basically an america's got talent meets big brother meets glee... and no, I don't watch glee, but mum shoved the very first one of this project on (where they're auditioning kids for the next show) and now I'm hooked... rooting on the ones I think are actual human beings. Anyway, point is - this last episode (well, it's the 3rd actually, which isn't the last or latest, but it's the one that's showing in England atm) was about vulnerability. They had to write a word that described their deepest vulnerability on sign that they then wore for a music video. 

And it got me thinking...

If you could describe your deepest vulnerability in one word - what would it be?

They had words like:

Fat

Gay

Anorexic

Numb

Used

Rejected 

                           etc

So I asked my boyfriend what his would be. He didn't hesitate before saying Loneliness.

I've heard a lot of people say that... and I started wondering what my word would be?
Broken came to mind first; because I do feel broken a lot of the time... but 'broken' isn't a vulnerability. It's a state - sure - but it isn't something you can be judged on. What people judge you on is the stuff that makes you feel broken.

Ugly then? Because I honestly don't believe anyone when they say I'm anything other than ugly. Enough bullying will drill that into you - even if you try your hardest to believe otherwise, it's a struggle. I don't make a big deal out of it, never really have, but it's something I feel really conscious of a lot of the time. 

But the thing is that it feels so stupid to say "My vulnerability is ugliness" when there's a bunch of people saying that you're beautiful.

So what word did I finally settle on?

Wrong.

That's my true vulnerability.

I'm scared shitless of being wrong. Of looking wrong, of saying the wrong thing, of doing the wrong thing, of thinking the wrong thing, believing the wrong thing, being proven wrong, of being thought of as wrong... 

There was a moment this year that brought it home to me, some throw away drunken comment that everyone agreed with that went along the lines of 

"Who thinks Lauren always thinks she's right when really she never is?"
Everyone in our little group of friends raised their hands.
I had to go to the bathroom and cry.

I never really took offence at it though, it was just a nerve that the guy touched when we were all getting drunk and I'd annoyed him by arguing over the rules of a drinking game. All he did was put me back in my place when I was getting a bit too up my own arse.

But for it to hurt like that just shows how close I think it is to the truth.

I'll be honest, I suffer from paranoia anyway - so I constantly think everyone hates me... Being wrong is the main part of that.

I think that what's making such a big difference in my life right now. I'm not letting myself be afraid of being wrong any more. I got it wrong at Uni and didn't do perfect - wasn't the best, wasn't even MY best... and no one cared. Everyone was still happy, pleased, proud... 

When I took the certificate down I text my best friend to ask for advice.

He ended up having a bit of a rant at me... though it was the soppy kind, not the angry kind.
I know he gets frustrated with me sometimes, but he see's so much more good in me than I do - hell, he see's more good in me than I dare to even dream is there. But then again, I occasionally have to point out to him how great he is... so maybe he feels a bit like this. Like nothing you do is quite good enough - like you're never as nice as you could or should be - never do quite as well as you could/should... see all the bad that you do and all the wrong, and all the good stuff just doesn't seem to measure up - let alone out weigh the bad. 

I was on the phone to a friend the other day too. I told him I was a bitch and he knew it (because, in all honesty, that's what I believe), and he just could not work out why I said it. He said I was the least bitchy person he knew. "A bit too honest sometimes maybe... but not a bitch." 

Still don't believe him, but when he demanded an example of me being a horrible person I couldn't find one. I'm certain there's millions... but I wrack my brains and nothing comes out.

Maybe that's helped a little towards me thinking that I might be a decent human being after all. I dunno.

All I know is life is looking up. Though I've said that before this time feels different. Maybe Barry has lifted the dark self-hate that was in me somehow; maybe I'll spend my life with him and it'll never come back... or maybe I've just grown enough to look past my own self image and see something real - just for once. 

Whether I have to do this alone, or whether I'll have help along the way one things for sure - I'll never give up.

I'm gonna be there for the people I love no matter what.

Besides - I owe some of them... big time.

Until dawn bids her final good-morrow

Blessed be

xx