Somewhere along the way I got lost and I have yet to find myself again. I think being alone has really helped me realize this as it has forced me to spend a lot more time with me. When I was a child I never had a clear vision of who I wanted to be when I grew up. I never really saw that as a problem because I was so busy being who I was. If something interested me I perused it to the best of my ability. This might not be strictly true. I guess I should say I perused it until it got hard. When that happened I quit. Around the time I turned 14 I decided I wanted to fix up the old motor cycle that had sat in our yard for several years. I asked my father and he said that it was fine. I stayed after school one day and walked to the library to find what I could about motorcycle repair. I found a book describing the process I would need do to fix the bike. I took it apart and found the broken part. I never put it back together. A year or so later I injured my knee while doing gymnastics and took the opportunity to take a break from the sport. Six months lather my knee was more than healed and I decided I was done with gymnastics and quit. I had been doing gymnastics since I was 4 years old.
I guess the heart of the matter is that I stopped being the me I wanted to be at some point. In the last 3 years I have went from reading between 60-100 books a year to somewhere around 15. I stopped worrying about my physical appearance. I stopped making more than a cursory effort at anything that I could not be the best at. Most of what makes of my at this point is a deep self loathing for myself. The things I do for “fun” I do for achievement. At some point I stopped paying attention to music. I don’t know how that happened. I used to love listening to music. At some point I just stopped trying.
Saying these things about myself is easy. I can pick out a thousand flaws that are unacceptable. What I need to do is pick some changes I want to make and make them. So here is my manifesto. Here is how I am going to start being the me I want to be again. Here it goes:
1. I want to stop doing things for recognition. Instead I will attempt to do things for self enjoyment. In this way I hope to try things I am not good at but am interested in doing.
2. I will start building a music library and playlists that I enjoy and can be proud of.
3. I will stop listening to books on tape while playing computers games. This lessens my enjoyment of both the game and the book.
4. I will put effort into the things I must do and attempt to find enjoyment in my daily activities.
Bobble I wanted to share this with you. I miss you and want you to know that you are one of the only parts of my life that I feel good about during the last couple of years. I want to try and change some things during the next couple of months and I hope that you will be my willing partner.
