Posts tagged with "confidence"

What Can I Say?

Things have changed.

I don’t write the same any­more, or about the same things. I’ve lost my fer­vent ver­bosi­ty. Every time I sit at my com­put­er, my mind blanks. Writing has become a chore. Even this entry has tak­en me days to think through. I find myself writ­ing and rewrit­ing every point, every para­graph.

In the begin­ning, blog­ging was a form of cathar­sis. Developing cog­ni­tive­ly beyond my ado­les­cence was an emo­tion­al peri­od, filled with con­fu­sion and grow­ing pains. The only way I could make sense of it all was to write out my thoughts, forc­ing myself to reflect and learn from every chal­lenge.

It was also a use­ful tool in fig­ur­ing myself out, as a part of my life where I could approach things with the con­vic­tion that I lacked in the rest of my life. Now that I’ve gained enough con­fi­dence, it does­n’t seem so nec­es­sary to prove myself with words any­more. It would seem that I’ve become a vic­tim of my own self-assured­ness.

I could fill this blog with entries, find­ing solace in the writ­ten word, when I was going through some­thing as sim­ple as a bad day. As time has passed, I’ve elim­i­nat­ed most of the things that both­er me enough to turn to this medi­um. It was a slow and sys­tem­at­ic process, both inter­nal and exter­nal. My new-found seren­i­ty has left me with lit­tle rage. I’m hap­pi­er now, and hap­pi­ness is too hard to write.

It would seem that I’ve run out of things to say.

There have been few epipha­nies, and even less inspi­ra­tion, in the last while. Maybe it’s because I’m in the mid­dle of a tran­si­tion. It takes a foun­da­tion of sta­bil­i­ty, some­thing I haven’t had in months, to grow. My life has­n’t quite set­tled yet.

Writer’s block is a sign that I’ve stopped grow­ing, a tes­ta­ment to what and how much I’ve been through.

But more impor­tant­ly, it’s a sign that I’m approach­ing where I want to go in my life.

Canada Day '06

Thumbnail: Pat in the hat
Thumbnail: Chaos on couch
Thumbnail: Brother Mike
Thumbnail: Lacey
Thumbnail: Beer in hand
Thumbnail: Jenn with drink
Thumbnail: Sarah licks
Thumbnail: Karen laughs
Thumbnail: Winding down on the couch
Thumbnail: Breakfast of champions
Thumbnail: Maple leaf

For Canada’s 139th, Aaron and Karen braved the rainy weath­er and host­ed a small gath­er­ing for a bar­be­cue. By the time I arrived, sev­er­al hours ear­ly from help­ing Trolley in the morn­ing, I was tired, moody, and smelling rather fresh, so I decid­ed to leave by the time peo­ple were sup­posed to arrive in the after­noon. Fortunately, Pat and Jen showed up ear­ly too, bring­ing with them a deck of Dutch Blitz. It was a game I had nev­er played before, but grew addict­ed to quick­ly. The fast-paced, and con­vivial nature of the game light­ened my mood, and by the sec­ond round I was feel­ing jovial. There were oth­er games too — bul­let chess, Trivial Pursuit (90’s Edition, which the guys won for the first time ever), Soul Calibur 2 — all of which I par­took through the rest of the evening.

I had such a good time that I end­ed up stay­ing the night because I missed my last bus. In the morn­ing, we slow­ly rose with cof­fee and greasy food, even­tu­al­ly play­ing some more Dutch Blitz before I had to leave.

It’s hard to remem­ber a time when I was so at ease in a large group, or when I laughed so much. Maybe we’ve final­ly cut out the intol­er­a­ble peo­ple, the ones who rub me the wrong way with their sim­ple pres­ence. Maybe, as a sign of my grow­ing con­fi­dence, I’m get­ting more com­fort­able around oth­er peo­ple.

Or maybe it’s a com­bi­na­tion of both.

Still Being Tested

It’s been rough going the last few weeks. Every day is a con­flict between doing some­thing relax­ing, doing the chores that will make me feel com­fort­able, or going to bed. Even now I can’t relax. I clean my mir­rors of fin­ger­prints in between sen­tences, or brush Dolly of excess fur as she force­ful­ly nudges my wrists in mirth, and only con­tin­ue writ­ing when I come up with the next idea.

A sore throat and weary body had me call­ing in sick today (I sus­pect that I caught some­thing from pet­ting the same cat as Karen yes­ter­day, who’s seems sick as a dog), although I end­ed up going in and work­ing six hours any­way. All the extra cur­ric­u­lar things are slow­ly wear­ing me down. There’s the two side-busi­ness­es, the new effort of learn­ing as much as I can about my new Canon Rebel XT by pho­tograph­ing every­thing, and the blog­ging. I also start­ed table ten­nis again, although I’m not sure how often I can attend, tak­ing four hours out of a week­day. The one reprieve is a LAN par­ty I’ve had planned since September that starts tomor­row, and even though it’ll be a good week­end of gam­ing, it’ll still mean lit­tle rest. Normally I’m planned, pre­pared, and prac­ticed for a LAN, but this time it’ll all be impro­vised.

I’m being test­ed, and even though I know that I’ll get through this, it’s still dif­fi­cult. I’m forced to deal with peo­ple I’ve avoid­ed my entire life. I’m push­ing myself past the lim­its of any­thing I’ve ever gone through. To be hon­est, it’s a lit­tle eas­i­er than I would have imag­ined. The strength and con­fi­dence that I’ve gained over the last two years has helped tremen­dous­ly. Knowing that things get done in their own time keeps me from being over­whelmed. If I can make it through this, I’ll be stronger than ever.

A Favour House Mine

We were at the house late last night, build­ing desks and fill­ing dry­wall holes. I decid­ed not to sleep in this morn­ing, because I need­ed the time to get work done, although I also need­ed sleep to get it done prop­er­ly. There are mailouts to com­plete, state­ment stuffers to design, bitmaps to vec­tor­ize, and count­less oth­er things for which I’m respon­si­ble. I con­vinced myself that I’ve (begrudg­ing­ly) gone through enough tor­tur­ing days of lit­tle sleep for some­one else, so it would be more appro­pri­ate if I did it for myself now.

Stepping out­side, the chill of win­ter morn­ing still in the air against the ear­ly light of spring, I skipped nine tracks until Claudio start­ed singing, in his shift­ing, melod­ic voice:

Bye bye beau­ti­ful
Don’t both­er to write

My lethar­gy turned into ener­gy, as I thought of how things have worked out based on the deci­sions I made. How I could die hap­py right now, although I’d pre­fer to wait at least two weeks if giv­en the choice.

The way I seem to have every­thing I deserve, and noth­ing that I don’t.

Stepping Through The Shadow, Part 2/2: The Friend Aspect

I choose to live and to
Grow, take and give and to
Move, learn and love and to
Cry, kill and die and to
Be para­noid and to
Lie, hate and fear and to
Do what it takes to move through.

—Tool, Forty Six & 2

Unfortunately, I’m not myself when I’m around my friends.

With them, I’m hap­pi­er, more con­fi­dent, extro­vert­ed. It’s usu­al­ly only with them that I can test the bound­aries of social con­duct, because I know that they under­stand me, accept me, and are will­ing to back me all the way. Sometimes, I end up say­ing some pret­ty embar­rass­ing things off-the-cuff, things made more embar­rass­ing by the fact that even my friends aren’t laugh­ing. But to find the bound­ary, one has to cross it at some point. And it’s such a fuck­ing pow­er trip to know that I’m test­ing myself as well, test­ing how far I’m will­ing to go, some­thing that I can only do with the right peo­ple.

Without my friends, I recede into my shell. I require them at par­ties, events, social func­tions just so I can inter­act with peo­ple nor­mal­ly. When I do find myself in absence of their pres­ence, I force myself to be social. I con­sid­er how I would behave if I was with them, and pro­ceed with cau­tion. It’s slow­ly get­ting eas­i­er for me when I’m by myself. Perhaps I’m gain­ing my own self-con­fi­dence when I’m not around them.

Something I that can only gain when I’m with them.

The Stepping Through The Shadow Series