I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, so gosh-darnit, why is this so freaking hard?!?

 

How does a person get confidence?

Why do so many other people have confidence, but I don't?

What is WRONG with me!?!?

Wait...don't answer that last one.

Hi! And welcome to another installation of Tash's Random Thoughts and Outpourings.  If I changed that to Random Outpourings and Thoughts, I could call it TROT, which is horse-related and therefore uber-cool.  Remember when "uber" was a wanna-be-cool way to say "super" and not a driving service?  Man oh man, I have a headache.  I hope it's not a tumor.  It's probably due to the weather change, and/or leftover from me trying to go all day yesterday without any caffeine.  I didn't intend to go without caffeine all day yesterday, but I was out of diet Dew at home and didn't have time to stop and get any before work. I was going to run up to Wal-Mart on my lunch break and get some, but due to minor schedule changes, that didn't happen, and I didn't feel like having coffee at work because I didn't have any creamer there (and I like my creamer with a little bit of coffee) and besides, ice water was suiting me just fine yesterday in the moment.  Work was keeping me busy enough that I could brush off the headache I was getting until after work when I was taking my mom shopping.  That's when I broke down and bought a 6-pack of diet Dew.  OK, I didn't "break down," I was going to buy one anyway.  Actually, my mom bought it for me, which was totally unnecessary but she insisted, and it was easier than arguing with her.  My point being, it'd been a long time since I went that long on so little caffeine, I was pleasantly surprised at how functional I was. I was chugging water all day to try to fend off the headache, but it still hit me, and I still have a headache now which may or may not be related.

I mean, it could be a tumor.  No offense at all to my friends who have actually had (or have) brain tumors.  I should know better than to make light of such a horrible condition.  On the other hand, I know that headaches can sometimes be a sign of something more sinister.  But it's probably just the weather changing. 

But back to my original question, which is inspired by the fact that I had my annual review this week. I always dread the annual review. I always have, since my very first job. It doesn't seem to get any easier, thank you, Anxiety.  I've been ruminating on why that could be, and why I have the particular faults I have.  Not just at work, but in life.  Because, let's face it, one thing I've never been known for is having a lot of self-confidence.

This never seemed to be an issue until the last 10-15 years or so.  I was always "just shy".  In my first semester of nursing school, in our first clinical rotation, our instructor told me I needed to be louder and more outspoken.  I could've died right then and there, yo.  Calling me out like that??  I'm just shy. It's just how I am. I can't fix it.  I don't like drawing attention to myself.  Maybe I'm not cut out to be a nurse.  

I have since come to understand what she was getting at, though.  It wasn't the first time, nor the last, that I was assured in not so many words that I had the knowledge and skills to do exactly what needed to be done, I just lacked the courage to actually do it.  Words that continue to haunt me to this day.

I don't understand it. It's not as though I was constantly belittled when I was growing up.  Au contraire, my parents were very supportive and encouraging.  My sister, not so much, but by the time I was old enough to understand that, I was also old enough to understand sibling rivalry so I tried not to let it get to me.  Maybe it did, anyway?  Your guess is as good as mine at this point.  

One can only ruminate on the past and speculate on these things for so long, though.  

Also, one can only put off finishing a blog entry for so long.  For example, I wrote all of the above last Thursday, and here it is Monday, and I'm trying to remember where I was going with that last sentence.  I hate it when that happens! 

Anywho, even though I don't recall which path I was trying to take to get there, my point was to be that I am hereby officially working on ways to boost my own confidence.  The word "affirmation" keeps running through my mind, so I'm starting there.  Telling myself all the time that I can do the thing.  It sounds so basic, doesn't it?  But this is what depression and anxiety can do to a person.  It's always in the background, telling me I can't do the thing, or I shouldn't do the thing, or if I do the thing incorrectly I'll mess everything else up, or it would be much better if someone else did the thing because they're better at it than me.  I h8 you, Depression and Anxiety.  You suck.  Would you please just leave me alone, for the rest of my life?  Can I break up with Depression and Anxiety?  I never asked them to invade my life, anyway.  Are there any tests out there yet that can localize where exactly in my brain these ideas are coming from so someone can go in and zap them out and I can be a normal person again who doesn't have to psych herself up to do things that normal people just do without even thinking about it because that's just what it's like to be normal?  

Go, me. Identifying the problem is half the solution. Or so I hear.

Feb-Roo-Airy!

...is obviously NOT when this photo was taken! But oh, how I need to see the green grass, and leaves on the trees that have been stark raving bare naked since seemingly forever (or at least as long as we've lived here).  Don't get me wrong, there's still a beauty and a certain peacefulness and calm in the winter woods, where everything is literally black and white and cold and deserted, and all the magic that is hidden away under the shadows of summer is exposed for all the world to see.  The trees are plentiful enough out here that, even sans foliage, they make an impressive barrier between you and whatever is on the other side.  But it's a wall of sticks.  Nothing can hide there.  The silence is as deafening as the air is frigid.  I long to hear the sound of leaves rustling in the warm summer breeze.  I want to be able to stand out there and immerse myself in nature and forget that there's even such a thing as "inside".  All the animal tracks we can see in the snow now just reinforce the idea that those woods, the woods like the ones in the photo above, will be alive and teeming with life in a few short months, rather than standing around desolate and barren and full of potential and/or promise. 

Yep. Gotta love living in the upper Midwest.  I know I've stated this before, but Spring Fever is hitting me particularly hard this winter, and while I don't want to wish time away faster than it needs to go, I do wish spring and summer would hurry up and get here. And then stick around for a while.

In case you haven't seen my FB recently, my latest enamoration is deer in our yard.  This has further led me to all kinds of conflicted feelings.  I'm an animal lover, but not one of those super die-hard animal lovers who is completely and totally against, say, hunting.  I'm not a hunter, but I'm not against other people hunting.  If my hubby, who is (or should I say has been) a hunter, wants to shoot one of those deer in our backyard (legally, in season), theoretically I don't mind.  It's a hunter's perfect scenario, isn't it?  Getting a deer right off your own deck?  I mean, if I could fish from my back step, I totally would, but it doesn't work that way.  I know there's a deer overpopulation problem around here. I know they cause a lot of damage because of that, especially when they get out on the highway and people hit them with their cars, and such.  There are deer in the city, for crying out loud.  There shouldn't be deer in the city.  They should all be out here, in the wilderness, living their little wilderness critter lives.  

But then I see them and their little wilderness critter selves in my backyard, which is all covered in snow, scrounging around for something to eat, and I imagine what it would be like to be a hunter and to pull up my rifle and shoot one of those beautiful, innocent animals that is doing absolutely nothing wrong but trying not to starve to death in the middle of a world that has been taken over by selfless humans... and I can't do it.  I can't pull the imaginary trigger.  It's just a creature trying to survive out there, just like the rest of us.  

My parents always said I'd've made a horrible farm girl.  It's true!  I have nothing against eating meat.  As long as I didn't know it first.  :)  True story -- once upon a time, I went with the hubby when he went deer hunting.  Mostly just to have a weekend away, as I had no intention of joining him in the woods or trying to take down Bambi's dad.  Well, as (my) luck would have it, my hubby got himself a deer that weekend. And we didn't have a trailer with us, just our good ol' trusty Chevy Venture minivan.  So that dead deer rode home from Up North in the back of the minivan.  Well, mostly in the back of the minivan...her head was basically intruding upon the front space (on the floor -- hubby, in his wisdom, had removed the back 2 rows of seats, so picture Bambi's mom laying on the floor...well, on a sled on the floor of the minivan with the back 2 rows of seats removed) with her big, brown eyes looking at me the whole time.

The moral of the story is that I could not eat that deer.  I never saw her alive, but riding home with her body in the back of my minivan was close enough.  Believe me, I wanted to! I want to like venison.  I wanted to enjoy the meat that my hubby had provided for our little family.  But I couldn't.  I just kept seeing those big, brown eyes, staring up at my from the back of my minivan.  I think I tried a bite or two but couldn't do more than that.

But, wait! There's more.  There was the year we raised chickens!  We started out with a couple as pets, and that went well, so we got a bunch of chicks one year with the sole purpose of growing them up to eat them.  Oddly enough, it was easy to NOT get attached to them. Most of them.  ;)  Chickens are fun to watch, and to have around (they eat bugs and rodents and weeds) but they can also be disgusting (they also eat each other if the opportunity arises) and sometimes not friendly.  And they poop all over if they're free-range, which ours were.  I felt no love lost when it came time to butcher them. In fact, I was glad, because they were getting too big for their little legs and it kind of disgusted me that they were even bred that way.  

But, you know what? I still couldn't eat them.  Again, I really wanted to, because chicken is one of the meats I generally love, but I could not eat a single bite of our own chickens.  Even worse, I couldn't eat any of the eggs from the layers, either.  That part really made me mad, because I love me some eggs, and having that many at our disposal was like winning the lottery.  But, nope.  As soon as I cracked one open, my appetite went right out the door.  

I know what you're wondering now.  Do I eat the fish that we catch?  The answer is No, I don't.  But that's because I'm allergic to fish.  I don't know if I would be able to eat them if I were not allergic.  I used to when I was a kid, so maybe?  

And here ends another chapter of Things You Didn't Know You Wanted To Know About Me.  Thanks for reading!