Ponderings

Gimme some compassion

Previously, on barelymyself.com…

Diz tied truth to compassion. TLo commented “What do you mean, woman?” Diz pondered blogging her answer.

And now, an all new blog at barelymyself.com…

I am beginning to think that finding your truth has to involve compassion - not least of all towards yourself. Depending on what kind of life you’ve lead, you may be needlessly hard on yourself - hung up on insecurities stemming from experiences that shouldn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, worried about things out of your control, confused about coming to opinions that you don’t recognize as familiar or jiving with your past opinions.

I didn’t exactly have a shitty childhood, but, like many of us, there are scars that haven’t gone away. While it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of where I am today, being the brainy nerd in grammar school really bruised and bloodied me, so to speak. I wanted to be accepted, and I allowed myself to be used for homework answers as if that would solve my so-called problems. I spent those formative years worrying about what people thought about me, and although I thought I got it all out of my system by the time high school rolled around, isn’t going against the norm and “not caring” what they think a bit of a defense mechanism? “I don’t care what those popular bitches think; I won’t give them a chance to reject me because I don’t want to be accepted!”

It would be easy to be comfortable being who you are if there were no external forces trying to suggest otherwise. I dated a guy because he was interested, and I thought that at eighteen years old, it was time to date someone. For many reasons, that relationship was doomed, and one of the things I learned was that I am not dating material. I thought I was okay with that, until friends, family, acquaintances, and popular magazines deemed that I “hadn’t found the right guy yet” and that “there’s someone out there for everyone”. It has taken me the entire span of my twenties to contemplate the fact that they are wrong, that not everyone has a “someone”, and that there are people besides me who don’t want anyone. This is a truth I knew, let external forces skew, and rediscovered. And this is just one rambly example.

This year, mainly, I have begun to worry about my impact on the world - environmentally, first, which stemmed into in relation to other living beings. I stopped buying bottled water and using plastic and paper bags. If I happen to forget my bags or my SIGG water bottle, I silently bitch myself out. I stopped eating meat, but have yet to give up dairy. I listen to vegan podcasts that say that dairy supports the exploitation of animals, and I agree, so I again silently bitch myself out.

But the truth is, I am making changes that I feel are right for me. And while I haven’t made all the changes I can or should, my truth, right now, is that doing a little is infinitely better than doing nothing at all. The road is constant, and the journey goes on, and if I eat too many potato chips today, I can always cut them out tomorrow. While I wasted my twenties in credit card debt, I know that I never want to go back there, and I can spend my thirties saving for my future. My truth is that I needed to stew for the first decade of my adult life; I needed to stumble, so that I can put those experiences to use in the next decade and beyond that.

So, truth and compassion. Truth is who you are. Compassion allows you not to hate the lies you may have told yourself or lived in an effort to figure out what your truth is. I will compassionately trek forward in my pescatarian, environmental, asexual, slightly overweight, Hashimoto-riddled body and try to accept myself for that. I’ve wasted enough time worrying about the outcome.

Tags: coming of age, insecurity, life, truth, turning thirty

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