This is Me



I am not as confident as people think I am. I am not as self reliant as people think I am. I am just a girl like any other, with hopes and fears and a desire to be loved. I used to be the girl who decorated the pillows with her tears, the girl so afraid to hope, she never tried. I wished I was never born. I felt inferior and unloved. I once cried so much I lost my voice but everyone just thought I was ill. You know how when you are quiet people just fill things in without asking you ( yeah that was me), I never explained things to people.  The way I felt at that time gave me the empathy I have today. It is why I strive to understand rather than judge others. Let me explain.

I was a girl who never quite felt beautiful. I was not even considered cute ( I mean you do not see anyone talking to me). I was the girl who was always buried in a book. The one who was treated as an outcast ( I was never privy to any class gist). I had friends alright, but I always felt just outside of their affections like feeling alone in a crowd of people. I was the girl who did not have a crush ( do you know how isolating that feels?). I literally dreaded going to school every single day. At home, I am the one who things have to be explained to a billion times before I get it ( it hurts not to be the fast learner).  Basically I had the feeling that I was never quite enough, not as a daughter, not as a friend, not as a student, not as a person.

Now I dealt with most of these feelings on my own, I was never a vocal person. That led to my sojourn into writing as I preferred talking to the book. Then I remembered telling a friend about it and I could literally still hear the screams right now. He said you are Beautiful and you are Precious, don’t be silly?   My feelings were not silly. Too often we tell people their feelings are uncalled for and they should not be feeling a type of way but the truth is they are. I had to learn to appreciate me for me.  I stopped talking about how I felt and internalized everything. I got angry with everyone around me and I wished myself dead. Then later, I read a book about appreciating yourself. I watched a movie with that famous quote “why are you trying so hard to fit in when you were born to stand out?”. I realized that God loves me just the way I am. But the thing about feelings though is that they never quite go away.

A few years later, some well meaning friends called me and told me all about how I needed to change the way I looked. How I needed to put on more gloss, wear more pretty clothes etc. They were talking about me being presentable in some other kind of way. I was livid. I had spent almost all of my leading up years building this confidence and they all just wanted to shatter it with words. I liked the way I looked and anyone who did not like it could not be my friend. Well, I gave my rant but oh the feelings came back.  I tried to see myself from that point of view and oh I was not measuring up yet again. I was not good enough.

Just like I had done before, I found solace in putting it all on paper and reflecting more on the real understanding I get every time from my family and close circle of friends and on those pages I found clarity. I poured my heart into the paper, I shed a few tears and I wiped them off as I saw the need to appreciate the love around me instead of not even acknowledging it. Then I talked to an older friend who said “You always inspire me and you are fine just the way you are”. Those simple words reassured me and I began to recall all what my Dad usually said, “you cannot follow people, you cannot please them. You have to be you, they will not like it but they will respect you”.  So I did some soul searching. Was I still respectful? Was I still faithful? Were the values I was raised with still intact? Yes! Then I did not need to change. I was just fine. And from that time it was not just that I had peace, I saw improvements in everything I wanted to do, saw me garnering more accolades as I started excelling and I saw people accepting me for who I was and am, telling me and all of us that we are the real architect of our own happiness and confidence and progress and acceptance even in the world.

I am the girl who dresses up one day then does not for the rest of the month. I am the girl who did not have a crush in school. I am the girl who likes her own space more than most people. I am the girl learning to be unapologetic about her feelings. I am the complicated sensitive. I do not like to talk about shoes, clothes and boys when I could talk about some other real issues. This is Me, I am enough and I now know that  I am so breathtakingly beautiful.



WaleAyo.

Comments

  1. This is superb, I'm so touched!

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  2. I don't read your posts, except I am in a relaxed position. Your words are like a blissful journey, to be relished bit by bit. I don't have to crack my brain, it just flows till the end. Well done! We are the architects of our happiness and acceptance. You are always an inspiration.

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