I want to be confident in myself. I’m already in love with my soul but love is not pride, love transcends flaws and regrets and I want to see me as I am and stand tall. Raw in feeling and bare against my own inspection as I look for words that define me. I want to be honest about my mistakes. I am a multi-cellular clump of experience wrapped in a physical body and I don’t want to only find confidence in my strength while letting my weaknesses fester into shame. Thats the hardest part about finding pride in oneself; acccepting everything that you are is a necassary evolution that not many people want to participate in, but we are not one dimensional.

You can be kind and have anger issues that youre working on, that doesnt make you less of a good person. You can be a pushover whos trying to set boundaries, that doesnt mean you should spend your days speaking badly about yourself until you have them. My point is that we are constantly changing and as much as I want to define myself, I must admit that it hasnt happened yet for a reason. Im always growing, failing, trying, never in one spot trying one thing, and how do you define movement like that? Theres multiple words for individual movements of course, forward, back, up, etc, but if something is going in every direction at once, changing speeds as it goes, then what would you call that?

Im personally not sure. So, I think I’ll offer you and myself a different reality. Lets not define ourselves and instead just know ourselves as much as possible. Perhaps then, through anger managment and boundary settings, we can find confidence. And the kind yet disastrously angry person can rise and say:

“Hey, I overreact sometimes, im working on it.”

And not feel any guilt behind their words because they know themselves inside and out, flaws and perfections, and when they grow into something different, then they can go on another adventure, and find themselves again.

Nothing is set in stone and even confidence is a cycle, a thing you must find over and over. You dont have to be prepared, you just have to try. When the last drop of pride runs out and you realize that you dont know who you are dont be scared to retrace your steps and embrace the coldest parts of yourself. When the sun rises, step out and face people, unsure and all. And let your shadow misshape into a unrecognizable void without a second glance. All forms of you will come back home eventually, you just have to guide them.