Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Day 15 - here we go again!!

Soooo weird to be doing all this AGAIN for the 3rd week!

I had a great hike today.... felt really healthy and I was keeping up with all the fast people! Not that that REALLY matters, but it still feels good :) I've put myself in the same *fast intermediate* van for the week.... we'll see how I feel about moving up to *fast* next week!

This new group of guests has a great vibe and I've met lots of people who are here for more than a week.... so I'll know a lot of these guys for the rest of the time I'm here... feels good!

Soooooo...... at the top of my blog on the yellow banner you see a link to a page called About Me, right? Well, I put that there when I first created this blog - fully intending to write something..... but I never have, and I think that's weird, but I think it's because I don't know what to write! Oh, there are lots of things I could say ABOUT me.... but something I've come to realize (with help from the counsellor) is that I don't really have a true identity for myself. And I don't think I ever have. I've sort of defined myself through my ROLES - and we all know how I don't feel like I'm fulfilling those! I know I'm a good mother, friend, daughter... etc etc, but I don't really know who I AM. It's like my identity is crippled or something. Maybe that sounds weird, but it was a lightbulb moment for me..... I think I've been searching for who I am for a looooooooooooooooooong time. Like, I mean elementary school. I have always been very easily influenced by others and their likes and dislikes, and have always tried to be LIKE the people I admire or adopt the personality traits I wish I had. This has rarely worked for me, especially since some of the personality traits don't mesh with my own personal values or self. Like being good with confrontation or being aggressive with my beliefs. I think I DO know what my values and beliefs are (and certainly these have become more clear to me as I've gotten older), but I think it's time to write these down, determine WHAT is important to me, and finally acknowledge who I really AM. Independent of who I think I SHOULD be, or how I think others perceive me.... just who I AM. Without knowing this, I think it will be impossible for me to really conquer this negative voice inside me. I need to know what I stand for and what's important to me, and create a way to help these things ground me when I start questioning my self-worth.

I can think of several ways I have held myself back due to not really knowing who I am. Although I can trace not knowing who I was back to childhood, obviously my identity was a work in progress back then and I know it was *normal* to question myself and who I was. For me, though, I think really feeling lost began with my Mom's illness and subsequent death. In some ways I feel *stuck* at 25... a young woman still trying to figure out what to do with her life and who desperately wants and even needs mothering. To this day, I still feel like that very uncertain girl who had just graduated from university and didn't have a clue who she was, what she wanted or who she wanted to be. There are many times I have to REMIND myself that I'm 40 - NOT 25! as I often feel intimidated by people my age or younger who have achieved any kind of success, and I feel inferior, not as mature, definitely not as wise or smart and I'm afraid of someone discovering I don't know what I'm talking about. All this has probably contributed to my shyness. Yes, I'm shy!!

I really do feel that in talking to my Dad last year that I was able to give that angry, resentful and hurt 25 year old a voice. But now I think it's time to let her go. My life didn't stop when my Mom died, but somehow my emotional self got stalled and it's like I've been waiting for some sort of mothering to help lead me into adulthood.

Geez that last paragraph came out of nowhere! - there are lightbulbs going off all over the place here for me - the more I write - the more I realize!

Ok, I'm going to stop now though, as I need to get to bed. If you had told me a month ago (when I was going to bed no earlier than midnight) that I would look at the time and think *oh my, it's late!* when it's only 8:45pm, I would have told you you were crazy!!

Good night!!!
Leslie xo

1 comment:

  1. FUN TO READ AND FOLLOW YOUR PROGRESS, LESLIE - SOUNDS LIKE YOU ARE PEELING OFF THE LAYERS OF AN ONION TO DISCOVER WHAT IS DEEP INSIDE....ALOT TO ACCOMPLISH IN FOUR WEEKS BUT MUST FEEL VERY SATISFYING!!!! CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR PHYSICAL ACHIEVEMENTS, AS WELL - OBVIOUSLY BIG STRIDES. HOPE THE KNEE DOESN'T GIVE YOU ANY MORE GRIEF. ROOTING FOR YOU AND LOVE YOU. HANG IN THERE, BABY!!!

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for commenting - your support means a lot :)

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.