I am a stubborn motherfucker
Prompt today is, “What are my strengths, and how can you use them in the future?”
Hmmmm….very interesting question. I don’t always readily accept praise, or compliment myself. Recognizing my feelings, and physical attributes makes me feel uncomfortable, and want to run away. As I have previously shared being perceived gives me a severe case of the ick. The opposite of strength would be weakness? Essentially a quality, characteristic, or a situation can be good, or bad? I refuse to live in an environment where a black, and white dichotomy exists. Growing up religious I would categorize people, actions, or whatevs as “good” or “bad.” I worried I was a terrible person, and would end up going to hell. Everything I did, said, or represented needed to be perfect so that I would not go to hell for eternity. I remember crying myself to sleep as a 5-year-old because I was worried that I was going to go to hell. There is something all those situations. Why is a 5-year-old tortured like that….my goodness. Gathering more life experiences I have come to the conclusion most of humanity resides in the grey areas of life. Humans are fallible creatures, who make mistakes because no shit we are human. I don’t feel things are weaknesses, but learning experiences. I cannot dwell in the shame, or guilt of an interaction. I learn from it, and move on. I have definitely done some fucked up, and embarrassing shit in my life thus far. But it doesn’t matter because we are all living the same lives simultaneously. What matters is how I learn from those moments that make me cringe. Why does it make me cringe? The why of it all reflects more on my insecurities, and anxieties.
Initially, I was going to say that my strength is empathy, and how I care/love the special humans, and animals around me. I felt that strength would be too cheesy, and an easy out. I will say my strength is that I am stubborn/persistent. I am an oldest daughter/child, most of my closest friends currently, and growing up are oldest daughters/child of immigrant, working class, or military families. My platonic life partner described us as being cockroaches. We exist despite it all. As an oldest daughter I would see a situation in my home, or academic life and realize I need to make shit happen because tasks have to be completed. No one was going to make me enroll in AP classes, sign up for the SATs, feed my sister and I, give me health insurance in college, or whatever obstacles stood in my way. I am stubborn, I persist despite it all. There is no way I should be able to read, let alone have a graduate degree from a reputable school in my field. I went to 13 different schools before college, we didn’t even have a computer until I was in late middle school, or high school. I was always on free/reduced lunch, and sometimes we didn’t have a car. I would not take any of my life back. I am who I am today because of everything I have experienced, and aging is a privilege. Now that I am in my 30s I am hopeful, because everything has to be better than being broke, poor, and grinding in your 20s.
TLDR: No such thing as good/bad, life exists in the grey, and I am a stubborn motherfucker.