Someone made me feel terrible the other day. She ignorantly belittled almost everything that I’ve worked for in my life. To have this person so insouciantly give me advice on something that I’m still trying to accomplish was completely insulting. Yet I can’t blame this person, because the comments made were in ignorance of how hard I’ve tried, how much I’ve worked, how difficult it’s been to make myself a better person.

With most other people, I couldn’t care less about their opinions. But I respected this person. I held her in the high esteem. This person was already most of what I wanted to become. And, naturally, this made her opinion important to me.

I don’t know what her background is, or how she’s come to develop as the person that I know, but I do know that mine has made things difficult on a mental level.

It takes me longer than others to get over things. I only trust half a handful of people. I’m still emotionally weak in some respects.

I’ve come a long way, and even though I still have much further to go, that doesn’t diminish the fact that I’ve succeeded thus far. Or the fact that it’s been a fucking struggle. Or the fact that I’m fucking proud of who I am now, and what I’ve already accomplished.

So what can I say, really, about these things said in passing? Nothing. All I have to keep in mind is that what I’m working towards is much easier to some than to others. That it’s me who’s in control of my amour propre.

And that, in the end, all that truly matters is self-satisfaction.

Sometimes it feels as if I’ve changed in an infinite number of directions. Every change comes as a result of some unsatisfactory characteristic of my former self. The result, hopefully a series of what I consider improvements, becomes the opposite of traits I once possessed.

Confidence is an example. It’s only now, after more than eight years of conscious work, that I’ve gained some form of confidence, of self-respect. And I appreciate it now, not only in myself but in other people as well. It was my own diffidence that drove me to become an assertive person. This isn’t to say that it’s something I’ve stopped working on. I’m not quite satisfied yet, because I’m still learning to prevent overconfidence, but other than that I think I’ve come quite far.

The same goes for quite a few other things. Having no friends has made me a better one. Being alone has made me a patient lover. Being shy has made me more outgoing. Having gone through emotional ups and downs has made me more stable.

Being weak has made me stronger.

I hate it when people tell me what I should be like, especially if the person thinks they have the right to say something just because they’re older than me. No I don’t need a better sense of direction, no I don’t know what that word defenestrate is, no I don’t care who won the Battle of Antietam. I spend enough energy trying to improve myself in ways which I deem are important now or in the future, I don’t need someone else telling me to improve myself in ways they think are important. Unless I have a solid, well founded respect for someone, I don’t give a fuck what they think people should be like.

19. Have you ever been in love? Unfortunately.

—LBJ

Well, here we are again.

I used to think that love was only pain. That was when the only experiences I had with love were bad, when everything I ever felt was unrequited. The fact that I felt this way was representative of the fact that I hadn’t gotten over those feelings at the time. How childish, inexperienced, confused, immature I was. This feeling shaped much of my personality in the last few years, although I’ve recently been able to come out of such an emotional blockade.

Having a relationship where most feelings, however confused, however torrential, however temporary, were shared, has allowed me to come to terms with the past. Such an incident has benefited me greatly, has let me know that I’m not so numb anymore, that it’s possible for such a relationship to exist even if I may never experience it again. Perhaps I was so scared that I would never fall in love again that any such experience would have shocked me into getting over what had happened in the past.

Now I embrace the feeling of love, embrace the fact that the simple act of listening to a song can fill me such poignancy, completely regardless of whether it’s good or bad. Not only do I enjoy being able to care for someone, I enjoy missing them as well, as difficult as it can be. I like the fact that something can turn me terribly, illogically weak. Every emotion involved, whether it’s pleasurable or painful, fills me with the urge to write, to create, to express. This is what I look for. This is what I need.

Now only good can come of love.

I didn’t mean to talk about this so soon, but after contemplating this subject for a while I feel as if I’ve done enough thinking to properly speak about it. I do feel like my mind is clear on this issue, that I’ve given myself enough time to understand things well from as many aspects as possible. This is something that I hadn’t really thought about in more than half a year, but more recent events have sort of spurred my mind on the subject again.

Hah. It’s almost humourous, how immature I seem back then to myself now, that it hasn’t even been an entire year and yet my mindset has changed completely in a totally different direction. I used to be so scared that I was indelibly affected by a past experience, that I could never change what I felt and thought. And yet I feel as if I see things much more clearly now. I feel less burdened, less biased, less negative.

This doesn’t even have anything to do with hope or with chance, things which I dwelt on so much before. I’ve been able to see past these matters, and freedom from such things is great. Odd, that an experience that may have damaged or discouraged me has been able to resolve all my worries.

And now, what has changed?

I’ve done what I thought I would never do again.