Who Am I Anyway?

I’ve been dwelling on this question quite a lot recently, as I feel more and more uncomfortable in my own skin, both physically and metaphorically. Its not about changing to become someone else, but more about being someone I feel  happy with. And after 38 years, I still haven’t found who that is, maybe I never will. Its almost like I’m ashamed of who I am. I’m constantly looking for that better, bigger thing to help define who I am. But I still don’t know who that person is. What am I trying to prove anyway, and to whom? I don’t feel comfortable in my clothes, and despite my constant efforts, I’m not losing the weight that I want to. I feel out of touch with the clothes that I do wear. I don’t like what I see looking back at me in the mirror.  I lie in bed at night, hating myself and struggling to sleep as the negative thoughts fill my head. All those insecurities about how I look, how I am, reach a peak and then affect my confidence with anything else. I don’t know who I am, who I want to be. Like I’m empty, a sense of complete nothingness.

 I heard someone say that your job, career, doesn’t define you and that was like a song to my ears. But then, what does define who you are?  So you can see how stuck I feel, not really knowing who I am and how to be happy with myself.  As we get older, there is that pressure to settle down, have that wonderful career and maybe a family. But in reality its just not that easy for some of us. And then comes the fear of failure if you don’t achieve what is expected.  What is happiness anyway? Is it finding that one person that you want to be with for the rest of your life, or the fantastic new job that you’ve always wanted, of losing the weight that has slowly crept on over time? Or perhaps its none of these things. We put that extra pressure on, to be like how we see everyone else, making ourselves doubt who we really are, burying it so deep that we can no longer find it. That’s me. I’ve been doing it for so long that it’s a hard habit to break.

 Looking back I don’t think I was ever one of those people who had a clear idea of where I wanted to go, and I’ve almost let myself drift along to the point now that I’m so lost, I can’t see where I’m going. That illusive idea of a perfect life, if there is even such a thing, is always just out of reach. Confidence has, and always will be an issue for me. Some days I just bumble through, pretending I’m not bothered, and then I have the days where it all becomes a bit too much, and I doubt my ability to do anything, that I will always be this way, and that nothing will change. And I know some of it is my own mind-set that is the problem, that I just can’t see what I have now, and what I’ve become. It may feel like nothing to me, but that’s only my view. Just because I don’t have the same things that others have, doesn’t mean that I’ve failed, but have just taken a different path, and for now, I need to realise that and work out where it takes me next. Only I can do that. As for being comfortable with that person, I’m working on it, it might just take a little longer than I thought.