This life sometimes feels like that “don’t fall into the lava” game we played as kids, and let me tell you; I was never very good at that game. My legs were always a little bit too short.
This life feels like that game
Because it has everything to do with how you were made, and nothing to do with your own personal victories. If you came into that game too small, and you played with people who seemed too big in your small seven year old eyes, you couldn’t win.
This life feels like that game
Because I always tried so hard, but that damn lava was so much closer than the next couch pillow and it just wasn’t fair. I always try so hard, but failure is closer to the beginning than success is, and it’s just not fair.
This life feels like that game
Because I was given a set of capabilities, like a room full of furniture, but my weaknesses and self-doubt overcome those much faster, and that lava seems to leap up to my legs.
This life feels like that game
Because I have people behind me, encouraging me, wanting me to take the leap, and I just can’t, because unless you are on that pillow trying to get to that couch, all the encouragement means nothing in the world. I try. I try. I try. But seven year old me felt small in a big kids world, and eighteen year old me feels like an infant in a grown up universe, and I just can’t seem to jump over that lava. I just want to get to the next piece of furniture. But my little legs make it all just too far.
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I wrote that. Probably about a month ago.
Can you tell I was frustrated?
I didn’t post it or put it anywhere near my blog, or even share it with anyone, except for one trusted friend.
Because why would I want to share with the world something that expressed my weaknesses? My downfalls? My self-doubt and struggles?
Why I would want my blog posts to reveal anything but my triumphant victories or my hope filled dreams?
I’d rather you only see the things I like about myself.
But there are things I don’t like about myself.
There are things you don’t like about yourself.
What use am I to the world if I pretend that my weaknesses are my strengths?
What good am I as a blogger if I hide the important parts?
I spend so many nights crying because I am so wasteful.
I waste precious time, precious energy, precious strength and so many precious words.
I waste them because I don’t believe in myself.
I don’t like that.
I was watching Ivanka Trump do a live stream about how to make the most of your time.
I was kind of horrified.
The amount of time she finds in her day is more than I ever used, and that scared me.
Success is so sweet, but failure is so easy.
Failure is so much closer to the starting point than success.
When I wrote about the lava game, I felt so small, overcome by the people who are better/smarter/more important/more beautiful.
I still do.
Because, darn it. They are better and smarter and more important and more beautiful.
They are stronger and quicker and kinder and more determined.
It’s not easy to live in a world where everyone is trying to DO something, because how can my something measure up to the something of the woman who has traveled the world three times and has six letters after her name?
I’ll be nineteen pretty soon.
A baby in the grown up world. I’ve heard my father call people who are thirty years old “kids.”
I guess I’m an infant, then.
I’m barely an adult, yet I’ve been wanting to be an adult my entire childhood.
I skipped a grade, and since the moment I didn’t have a sixth grade, I was always chasing after my friends. They turned fifteen, I turned fourteen. They turn twenty, I turn nineteen.
I spent my life waiting to be older, and as each new birthday comes, the age I turn is already old news.
I’m always too young.
But, yesterday, someone took me seriously.
Without me asking her to.
We were having a conversation, and she said something, and suddenly I had this revelation. “She doesn’t think I’m too young”
I realized- maybe I’ve just been listening to the wrong people.
I’ve been listening to myself too much.
For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t told that I was being ridiculous, or too ambitious, or that I was wrong for being unsatisfied with something.
Maybe, just maybe, I can stop telling myself that too.
It’s so easy to fall into the trap of telling yourself to be like other people.
I’m an unbelievably sensitive person.
Not just sensitive in the way that I get hurt often, but sensitive to the things around me. I never see things at face value, I see them for all the million ways they reach into other places.
This makes me seem uptight and angry.
People don’t understand it.
I’m always fighting with the same people because they can’t see the situation through my eyes, and I can not fathom how they are seeing it that way.
When every argument comes to a close, I seem to always be on the wrong side. Stuck again behind a door, in a room that is too small for anyone to join me in.
It makes me feel childish. Like I over-reacted. Again.
I probably will always be in that room. That room that has a sign hanging “Someone That We Can’t Understand.”
Maybe.
But something inside of me is trying not to care anymore.
So I’ll probably keep fighting with people.
I’ll probably never be able to explain myself as much as I’d like to be able to.
I’ll probably never accomplish all I want to accomplish, I’ll never be as good as someone else, I’ll probably always doubt myself a lot.
Yeah, I’m extremely sensitive.
Yeah, I’m terrible at time management.
Yeah, I don’t know how to sit at a desk and “Adult” the right way.
Yeah, I’m eighteen, and fresh-faced and naive about real life.
And all these things will keep bugging me, at night, in the morning, while I’m eating my lunch.
Even among the artists, the writers, the creative beings that are also too sensitive, everyone is still further down their road than I am.
They just seem more sure of themselves.
But maybe, like me, everyone still hides that part of them from the public eye.
No matter how honest someone claims to be, maybe this is the part they are still hiding.
Maybe that’s why I have so much self-doubt, because I’m just seeing what everyone else is putting on the outside of their doors.
Maybe we are all on the wrong side of the door, but we pretend to be on the right side, because who wants to be on the wrong side?
The thing about telling people your most hidden feelings is that sometimes people share those feelings, and suddenly you don’t have to hide anymore.
When you hide, you get stuck, and you can’t see things clearly.
I don’t want to hide anymore.
I have no reason to hide.
So here is my brutally honest post. It might make you uncomfortable because I got a little too close to your door.
Or maybe in all honesty, I am the only one on the wrong side of the door.
But how will I know if I never open it?
ThisPublicDiary 
How lovely and open you are! And so ready to grow. 🙂
I am the youngest of 3. Always wanted to be older quicker. Sometimes now I am way older than them. And many times now I’m glad I’m a tad younger.
A year for you is coming up. It will be a beautiful year and you will know so much more of your wonderful self. Looking forward to being around during it. 🙂
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Thank you for reading, and for your lovely comment. I’m pretty sure you have me mixed up though, with my cousin Etti who is attending Tzohar next year! She is in for a great year, I’m sure. Anyway- thank you for reading the post and taking the time to comment.
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Etti-
You’re right!!! See but you should have come!!! Or at least come to visit!!!
It’s good that the loveliness runs throughout the family 🙂
The wishes for you are no different- may you find your complete sense of purpose through ur unique talents and may you utilize them to the fullest!!!may this bring you happiness and complete peace 🙂
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