Found this image today. Silvermoone shared it from her Instagram to her Facebook page. It really hit me. It was one of those light bulb moments. I never heard this theory before, but holy crap does it ever make total sense.
I shared this image on my Facebook timeline today, because I know so many people that deal with this fear on a daily basis. Sometimes it feels like it could be minute by minute even. I know I struggle with this fear all the damn time, it really does feel like it changes minute by minute depending on the scenario and who is involved in said scenario.
I said it was like walking a tight rope. The feelings of fear of not being enough or of being too much. And for the most part that is true. But as I am writing this post, I realize it can also be like a pendulum. Swinging back and forth between too much and not enough. I mostly walk the line of “not enough”, but there are times when I try to speak my truth or stand up for something where I fear being “too much”.
The more I try to be enough, the more I lean towards too much, the more it seems people want to stuff you back in a box and tell you to hush. Or they tell you how wrong you are or that you don’t know what you are talking about.
If I am honest, I am down right scared shit to be me. The tight rope, the pendulum…they are overwhelming. I don’t know how to be me. I don’t know who I am. I’ve spent my entire life being told I’m too much of this, not enough that. When I’ve tried to “fix” that I was then told that I’m too much that, and not enough of this now. There was no “happy medium”
That has left me feeling worthless, useless, no good. It has left me not knowing who I am or what I want because I’ve always had people telling how awful I was. Been told I should never have been born. That I was an accident. Can’t help but make me wonder if my mother didn’t try to get rid of me. My father was convinced she made herself fall off a ladder to induce a miscarriage of what would have been my younger sibling. I can see where his theory had validity. My mother didn’t “just fall”. We’re talking about a woman who would stand precariously on furniture to do some task or sit on a window sill three stories up to wash the outside of a window.
I was raised and told early on that I was no good, not enough. Too much to handle, even though I was quiet as a mouse and could play quietly for hours alone. In all my relationships, it was always me that was not enough or too much for my partner. My ex felt it was his duty to “fix” me and make me into who he thought I was supposed to be.
So yes, the fear is not one or the other. It, I believe, is the fear of being oneself. The pendulum swings violently back and forth as you battle and struggle to be yourself. Or try to find that balance on the tight rope between too much and not enough. Is there such a thing, a happy medium? Or is that settling and compromising to make someone else happy because they can’t handle who you are?
I don’t have the answer. All I can do for me, is try to figure out who I am and conquer the fear. Let the cards fall where they may. I think the truth of it is, is that you need to do you, be you and not worry if you are too much or not enough because you will never be able to please everyone.
In just a mere five days, Camp NaNoWriMo begins. It’s just like November’s NaNo, with the main difference being you get to pick your project and word count. Your project can be anything from a screenplay to poetry to a series of short stories. You get to pick your own word count, so you can set your goal as high or as low as you need to. I have my goal set conservatively to 25,000 words for the month.
