Strength

I am a strong woman. In spite of the turmoil I have been through and am currently going under, I am still here. I keep going because life goes on. I never considered stopping since that one time with a bottle of gin when the moon shone down onto my groovy chick bedspread, age appropriate. Of course, I stole the gin.

I put my strength down to good parenting (it wasn’t all bad) and growing up in a time when being a woman was starting to be a good thing.

But I also have vulnerabilities. I am weak at times, too.

It took this simple Scottish Farmer’s son to teach me that I couldn’t plan my way through life avoiding my insecurities but highlighting my achievements. He highlighted the falseness in that. To be honest, I hadn’t even noticed I was doing it.

#1 I am not a good friend. I don’t know how to be. I don’t know where to put my loyalty. I want to be liked. In the past, I have covered this up by giving myself reasons to be liked across the board and kept myself aloof and mysterious and most importantly unpredictably difficult to hold plans with. I also only made friends by way of the only sociability lesson I did learn: by chatting and flirting in person. I met people through people and gauged their interest In me before committing to a next level of friendship. I’m approachable, so I made lots of friends. But this inability to show loyalty has lost me most of them. A person who is still around has suggested that some friends I have kept because I have been comfortable around then to be myself and here’s the key thing: they’ve not done anything to piss me off ergo…

…#2 I have issues dealing with conflict. Whilst I tend to freeze in conflict intially, it turns out I can be quite mean myself in a delayed response that is usually delivered with a racing heart. Sadly the man’s got issues here too. Our inability to deal with each others conflict was our downfall, not a lack of love.

#3 I am nervous. Of everything. I don’t like to admit it because in all honesty I thought I had eradicated my nerves. I built my confidence but confidence can be brought down again and I was brought down once again in a ball of jelly. I’m not sure if the term anxiety is appropriate for what I’ve been through.

#4 I’m more negative than I’d like. I can focus on the things that are bad more than the things that are good. I struggle to notice the good things as they pass me by and get enveloped in the bad. Things irritate me. They bother me. Some days are worse than others but I can see how this level of negative would really annoy someone after a while.

#5 I’m too trusting. In the past, this hasn’t mattered. I was always in control and if shit didn’t go the way I had hoped, I left. Simples. These days I’m trying to make actual friends and I don’t know who to trust and often end up making bad choices.

There’s probably a handful more than I have mentioned here. But it’s a start. To be strong, I have to start admitting and addressing my weaknesses, instead of brushing them under the carpet hoping my achievements will overshadow them.