who am I?
i think often of my weaknesses... I analyze others frequently, characterizing what I appreciate and what I admire. The last time I characterized, it was an exercise in what I had learned about what I wanted in one of the most important roles in my life - a boyfriend.
I always talk and think about how much this time in life is about growing and changing and maturing. About being in a state of flux. I haven't changed my mind about this being a good thing, but I think sometimes I get a little lost in flux, and fall adrift. Yes, I'm changing, but that's no reason not to know who I am.
Time to sit down and think about it a little.
I like gardening. I like nurturing and caring for things, and making them grow, and seeing how beautiful they become.
I like cooking. I like taking raw ingredients, and with a little time and know-how passed along from my mom, making food that is nutritious, beautiful and fufilling. I like eating what's been prepared by my own hand, it reminds me of mom's food growing up, having dinner every night. I like cooking for others, giving them the same good food, and receiving in return their praise and enjoyment.
I like studying political science. I like the critical thinking aspect of it, the occasional crystalline moment of taking one more step in figuring out exactly what I believe and why. I like the distant possibility of a career in politics taking me to important places and making me an important person. Or maybe just making a difference in policy. Or feeling like I am. I like exploring the fundamental nature of how people in civilization act, and why they think they do the way they do. I like seeing an issue from both sides.
I like being challenged at the dinner table, or at a party, or in a room with friends or peers, or just people, being asked to defend my beliefs and positions in philosophical and political realms. It helps me figure out what they are. I wish I got more of that at school, instead of just around Eric and his friends and family. I wish in my last years of growing up at home, I hadn't shut mom and dad down from doing that with me so much.
I like spending a night around my friends, having a plain old, no-frills good time. Playing board games, or watching a movie or just talking. Sure, I can do alcohol and parties, and at times I even enjoy them, but really, give me a game of Yahtzee or Cranium with friends and soda and chips over that any time. Give me a good ol' knock-down, run-around game of cat-and-mouse or a game of pillow war. Twelve year old fun is the best kind.
I like caring about other people, and doing things for them. Just little things, like making them dinner or doing their laundry or bringing them notes from a class they missed. Things that aren't vitally important, just nice. I like the smile it brings to their faces.
I worry that I'm not treating my boyfriend or my family well enough. They care about me so much, and do so much for me, and whether I choose to recognize it or not with my family, are and always have been, there for me whenever I need them. I worry that I just take them for granted. I sometimes think that it would serve me right if one day, they were suddenly gone. I hope they never are.
I love music. Playing music, even though it hasn't been a part of my life since band. Listening to music, doing whatever I'm doing. Going to concerts. Listening to my friends sing, be it in a cappella or just in the car. I wish I could sing - well. I wish I could write beautiful songs, or arrange things for my friends.
I've been avoiding home for almost 2 years now. I think it was a phase I needed to go through, getting out and seeing that there are other - and in many cases, better - things than what I grew up with in Ohio. But, at least on a psychological level, I'm starting to realize that not everything about Ohio and Sheffield Lake are inferior. The people and ideas there are just as valid and valuable as the ones in New Orleans and California. Red state people aren't neccesarily bad, wrong or stupid. Especially if I want to serve in government, it would do me well to remember that. I am privledged. Not all people are. Hopefully, I can face my demons and hold true to this position when I go home in December. I can't run forever. Ohio may no longer, and perhaps never again, be my home, but it is my roots.
I love making art, and displaying it to the world. I love winning awards for it. I love being a part of things, being in charge of things, running the show.
I love to learn. I love sitting in a room with people who are wise, and bouncing ideas off of them, or just listening to them struggle to understand more than they already do. They are my role models, the people from whom I learn the most. I love being intellectually challenged. Hence, I love the classroom.
I love feeling right, and knowledgable. Hence, I also love classes in which I can dominate, and thus feed my ego. I am not humble. I am vain, and need my ego stroked from time to time. This is not an admirable trait, but it's a part of who I am. I'm starting to be okay with that.
I feel that for monthes of my life at a time, parts of me are shelved, put into storage, and gather dust. Maybe even forgotten. But not gone. Not gone. Not a single person, except me, grasps my full person and all of the forces which have and continue to shape who I am. And if I forget sometimes, well, eventually, I'll dust off different parts and try them on for size again. And even if they gather dust for the rest of my life, they're still there.
I swing back and forth between being girly and being a tomboy. I like dusty jeans and a dirty t-shirt. I like a crinkly pink knee-length skirt and low heels. I love waking up showering and starting my day. I like taking the extra hour to apply makeup and dry my hair and look pretty. I like doing construction work, and I like painting my nails. I like things in between. It's all who I am.
I have ambition and fearlessness, I can also be scared and timid and thus evasive. Both are me.
I love sunsets. I love sunrises - from both ends of my day: end and beginning.
I love beaches. I love forests. I love urban jungles, and I appreciate suburbia.
I have fears, insecurities, and self-doubt. I also have confidence, self-assurance, and the rock-solid belief that I am forever living and improving.
All of this is me. It's who I am. From Mr. Hildebrand, to mom and dad, to Amanda, to Beth Scherry, to Kelson Barber, to Tigger, to Pat Bialko, to Becca and Rachel, to Eric, to Mr. and Mrs. Adkins, to Andrew, to grandma Jean, to Fid, to Spaz and Fishy, to Dawn, to Brad, to uncle Paul and aunt Nancy, to Jason and Brian and Steve, to Mike, to Brendan, to Will and Liz, to Fiona, to Sherril, to Dr. Lavin, to myself, this is what has shaped who I am.
Overall, at a most fundamental level, I truly believe I am a good person. It underlays my understanding of the world, and of myself.
I may not know completely who I am, and most of the time, I may be in a state of flux. But the bottom half of who I am is me, is unchanging. I may not know completely, but I do know who I am.
I always talk and think about how much this time in life is about growing and changing and maturing. About being in a state of flux. I haven't changed my mind about this being a good thing, but I think sometimes I get a little lost in flux, and fall adrift. Yes, I'm changing, but that's no reason not to know who I am.
Time to sit down and think about it a little.
I like gardening. I like nurturing and caring for things, and making them grow, and seeing how beautiful they become.
I like cooking. I like taking raw ingredients, and with a little time and know-how passed along from my mom, making food that is nutritious, beautiful and fufilling. I like eating what's been prepared by my own hand, it reminds me of mom's food growing up, having dinner every night. I like cooking for others, giving them the same good food, and receiving in return their praise and enjoyment.
I like studying political science. I like the critical thinking aspect of it, the occasional crystalline moment of taking one more step in figuring out exactly what I believe and why. I like the distant possibility of a career in politics taking me to important places and making me an important person. Or maybe just making a difference in policy. Or feeling like I am. I like exploring the fundamental nature of how people in civilization act, and why they think they do the way they do. I like seeing an issue from both sides.
I like being challenged at the dinner table, or at a party, or in a room with friends or peers, or just people, being asked to defend my beliefs and positions in philosophical and political realms. It helps me figure out what they are. I wish I got more of that at school, instead of just around Eric and his friends and family. I wish in my last years of growing up at home, I hadn't shut mom and dad down from doing that with me so much.
I like spending a night around my friends, having a plain old, no-frills good time. Playing board games, or watching a movie or just talking. Sure, I can do alcohol and parties, and at times I even enjoy them, but really, give me a game of Yahtzee or Cranium with friends and soda and chips over that any time. Give me a good ol' knock-down, run-around game of cat-and-mouse or a game of pillow war. Twelve year old fun is the best kind.
I like caring about other people, and doing things for them. Just little things, like making them dinner or doing their laundry or bringing them notes from a class they missed. Things that aren't vitally important, just nice. I like the smile it brings to their faces.
I worry that I'm not treating my boyfriend or my family well enough. They care about me so much, and do so much for me, and whether I choose to recognize it or not with my family, are and always have been, there for me whenever I need them. I worry that I just take them for granted. I sometimes think that it would serve me right if one day, they were suddenly gone. I hope they never are.
I love music. Playing music, even though it hasn't been a part of my life since band. Listening to music, doing whatever I'm doing. Going to concerts. Listening to my friends sing, be it in a cappella or just in the car. I wish I could sing - well. I wish I could write beautiful songs, or arrange things for my friends.
I've been avoiding home for almost 2 years now. I think it was a phase I needed to go through, getting out and seeing that there are other - and in many cases, better - things than what I grew up with in Ohio. But, at least on a psychological level, I'm starting to realize that not everything about Ohio and Sheffield Lake are inferior. The people and ideas there are just as valid and valuable as the ones in New Orleans and California. Red state people aren't neccesarily bad, wrong or stupid. Especially if I want to serve in government, it would do me well to remember that. I am privledged. Not all people are. Hopefully, I can face my demons and hold true to this position when I go home in December. I can't run forever. Ohio may no longer, and perhaps never again, be my home, but it is my roots.
I love making art, and displaying it to the world. I love winning awards for it. I love being a part of things, being in charge of things, running the show.
I love to learn. I love sitting in a room with people who are wise, and bouncing ideas off of them, or just listening to them struggle to understand more than they already do. They are my role models, the people from whom I learn the most. I love being intellectually challenged. Hence, I love the classroom.
I love feeling right, and knowledgable. Hence, I also love classes in which I can dominate, and thus feed my ego. I am not humble. I am vain, and need my ego stroked from time to time. This is not an admirable trait, but it's a part of who I am. I'm starting to be okay with that.
I feel that for monthes of my life at a time, parts of me are shelved, put into storage, and gather dust. Maybe even forgotten. But not gone. Not gone. Not a single person, except me, grasps my full person and all of the forces which have and continue to shape who I am. And if I forget sometimes, well, eventually, I'll dust off different parts and try them on for size again. And even if they gather dust for the rest of my life, they're still there.
I swing back and forth between being girly and being a tomboy. I like dusty jeans and a dirty t-shirt. I like a crinkly pink knee-length skirt and low heels. I love waking up showering and starting my day. I like taking the extra hour to apply makeup and dry my hair and look pretty. I like doing construction work, and I like painting my nails. I like things in between. It's all who I am.
I have ambition and fearlessness, I can also be scared and timid and thus evasive. Both are me.
I love sunsets. I love sunrises - from both ends of my day: end and beginning.
I love beaches. I love forests. I love urban jungles, and I appreciate suburbia.
I have fears, insecurities, and self-doubt. I also have confidence, self-assurance, and the rock-solid belief that I am forever living and improving.
All of this is me. It's who I am. From Mr. Hildebrand, to mom and dad, to Amanda, to Beth Scherry, to Kelson Barber, to Tigger, to Pat Bialko, to Becca and Rachel, to Eric, to Mr. and Mrs. Adkins, to Andrew, to grandma Jean, to Fid, to Spaz and Fishy, to Dawn, to Brad, to uncle Paul and aunt Nancy, to Jason and Brian and Steve, to Mike, to Brendan, to Will and Liz, to Fiona, to Sherril, to Dr. Lavin, to myself, this is what has shaped who I am.
Overall, at a most fundamental level, I truly believe I am a good person. It underlays my understanding of the world, and of myself.
I may not know completely who I am, and most of the time, I may be in a state of flux. But the bottom half of who I am is me, is unchanging. I may not know completely, but I do know who I am.