To say my blog posts are sporadic is an understatement.
Those who know me well know that I rarely hold back when I feel like I have to say something. Like REALLY have to say something. And it’s taken six months for me to say something, but it’s weighing so heavily on my mind right now that I am awake at 3:42 typing away. EARLY early morning is the diuretic for my mind. Seriously. I was sitting there washing pots and pans when it came back to me for the hundredth time since it was said to me over the summer by a former classmate.
“You have so much self confidence, Stephanie”
{silence}
I had no idea how to respond, so I chose not to. Instead, I sucked it into my head and there it has sat until now.
I have tried to measure this on the scale of meaning in my head since she said it. I have thought about her sentence. I have picked apart each word. I have imagined again and again the look on her face in the darkened room over dessert that night. I have tilted my head to the side almost trying to hear it in my head more clearly, the tone and intention in her voice still nagging at me.
What exactly was that supposed to mean?
When someone says “You have so much self confidence”, how do you respond?
Thank you? Not really. I mean, it’s almost an insult, right? “Congratulations on thinking so highly of yourself, you egotistical so-and-so”. Or is it a compliment? Did it come from someone who wished they had more self confidence? In this case it came from a tall, athletic (and well-loved-by-her-peers) blond girl who looks EXACTLY the same as she looked in high school. Not usually the type of person who would be congratulating someone who looks like me for having self-confidence they might personally lack and wistfully wish they had. So, I am left with taking it as any good-natured fat girl would – a slam. I mean, what else am I left with, really? I can’t assume it was genuine, right? So I have to assume it was fake. Or maybe, at best, a well intentioned comment that was probably followed up in her head with “…for someone who looks like you”. And I know some of you will say I am being too hard on myself or that I am reading things into her words – but you know, I challenge you with the fact that when you look like I do and have to work harder than the next girl to prove yourself on your worth alone - the compliments are actually few and far between. When you get one, you cherish it – or you chew on it. And I have felt from the start that this was more gristle than glowing.
So I have chewed on it for six months and it’s finally fallen apart in my mouth, trickled down through my fingers and into a blog post.
Self confidence. When did it become a bad thing? The answer is, it’s really not. Having self confidence is something I struggled with so desperately growing up. I went to Bible studies and small groups and talked with friends and attended retreats all throughout my teens and early twenties – each one pushing women to have MORE self confidence. I believed what they said. I followed along in books that let me fill in blanks about how God wanted me to love myself and I sang songs sung by songstresses who came from a positive female focus standpoint. I wrote myself notes on little 3 x 5 cards telling myself each day things I loved about myself. I came to a place where I was healthy and emotionally in love with who I am. It has been easier with age. I look in a mirror and I see faults – and I am reminded by people all the time how I am not society’s norm of beautiful and brilliant. I do not put on rose colored glasses. I look at myself honestly and I see so many things more than a flabby almost-40-year old woman. I see a survivor. I see someone hurt who has lived to also be happy. I see a champion of equal rights for all. I see a woman who volunteers when she has time. I see someone who has hobbies and is not afraid to indulge in them. I see someone learning to take time to selfishly get a massage now and then. I look closer and I see some white hairs in the sea of dark brown. I see someone who is SO proud to have loving, caring and amazingly supportive friends and family. I see someone who has succeeded at several different careers in her life. I see someone who has come a long way from being a poor little girl everyone picked on. So everyone's mad plan worked - the studies, the workbooks, the little cards - it all worked - I mean, when I look in the mirror, I see someone who loves and embraces who she is...I see ME.
And again, isn't this what everyone is supposed to want? What we’re all supposed to hope for? Inner joy with one’s self? Happiness with who you are? Growing as a person enough to look past your own flaws to also see that there is no one else exactly like you on this planet and there is SO MUCH you can do with your own two hands that you should never second-guess the fact that as one voice, one heart and two hands you can change the world?! How incredibly special that you and you alone are? How you look is nothing more than a really good foot in a door of opportunity?
It’s what you do with the rest of your body once you’re through the door and faced head on with the opportunity that REALLY matters.
Self confidence is loving and believing in your own worth. Being content with who you are and being PROUD enough to walk with your head held high.
This classmate hadn't had a conversation with me in twenty years. The words she shared with me that night will stay with me for a long time - maybe until the next reunion. And now that I have spit out the gristle I've been chewing on, I feel better. It usually takes a great deal of thought to come to a revelation. I guess my revelation is less of a revelation and more of a recognition that however this person meant her words to sound, they did stay with me for a reason. Maybe a little tug at my self-awareness? I mean, I don’t ever want to come across as someone who is cocky or self-obsessed – that would be my worst nightmare. There’s nothing more dreadful than a human being who has decided they are above someone else. And I’m not talking about the feeling you get when you watch “Hoarders” – I am talking about the thought that because you look a certain way or you have more money or material things surrounding you that you are somehow above most other denizens of this planet. I would never EVER want to be that person.
So, with that, I think I have decided that I’m finally moving on from the moment. My only wish is that I could go back to that table, raise my glass and toast her with a smile and thank her for the extremely thoughtful compliment. Or at the very least pop up with some sort of pithy remark. I've never been really good at coming up with those when I need them most. I guess I need a little more confidence in my comebacks.
