It's a late night...

Actually, this is quite early for me.  I am and always will be a night owl.  Mornings totally suck for me, and I can't explain it to save my life.  Everything before 11 AM just feels like death, even when I've had ample sleep with sweet, sweet dreams, a brisk walk and shower, and a nutritious and balanced breakfast (though these things rarely happen, if ever).  Sure, I can function and be a person before 11 AM.  I can read and do math.  I can even probably do more extraordinary things like...sing or be profound.  But right around 11 AM is when my brain really starts to fire.  At about 3 PM, it slows down again (delayed food coma from lunch, brain-nap time), and then it gets progressively faster until around this time.  The witching hour (but not the scary, evil kind).  The time between midnight and 3 AM is when I'm usually at my prime.  It's terribly inconvenient because regular people are sleeping right about now...

I am not regular people.  I never have been, and I hope I never will be.  I like to think a lot.  I tend to think too much, to be honest, which is usually not a good thing.  It's generally around this time that I think the most.  I start to get really reflective and/or existential.  Do I exist?  Sure.  Am I doing a good job of existing?  Debatable, but as long as I'm not killing things or stealing, I think I'm doing all right.  Do other people like my existence?  Well, I sure hope so because if they don't, then what's the freakin' point?  (This is usually an internal discourse, but sometimes I have to talk out loud.  That's actually not a joke.  100% true.)

Anyway, what is the freakin' point?  When all is said and done, what is MOST important to me?  (I ask myself...sometimes out loud.)  When I'm on my death bed, what will I be thinking about?  What would I miss most about living?  It's not money or art or even music or hockey.  It's the relationships I've built.  But why are these so, so important to me?  Sometimes they feel like such a burden.  These relationships tend to intersect and tangle so much that I don't even remember how I met a lot of my friends.  Somehow, there are some distinct spheres of relationships in my life, but they all seem to collide and overlap like a giant, 3D Venn Diagram.


Like this, except bigger and harder to read.  Family not pictured.

Frankly, it's exhausting.  It's not exhausting simply to have these relationships.  What's exhausting is to feel like I want to make everyone happy, like I have to be someone different around some people, like I have to hide things about myself from others.  And the overlapping and tangling complicates things because if I act more subdued around one sphere and that sphere meets another sphere, where my sense of humor is usually unbridled, then Sphere One starts to think I'm insane.  See?  Exhausting.  And yes, I did just use Paint to make a Venn Diagram.

Sigh.  In the end, I know it's really beautiful (like WAY more beautiful than my beautiful Venn Diagram up there).  When you look at the big picture (not the picture up there, but the metaphorical kind), these people that I've mentally placed in the imaginary Venn Diagram all like and/or love me.  So why hide who I am?  What have these people done to make me believe that they won't still love me when they find out I'm not perfect?  (In case you haven't found out yet, I just totally spilled the beans.)

The bottom line is I hide things about myself, I censor myself, I pander, and I tell white lies because at my core, I care more about other people liking me than I do about liking myself.  As sad as it sounds, it's a truth and an obstacle that must be overcome.  I'm not, in any way, trying to say that these relationships are ONLY meaningful because they validate me.  They are so much more than that, obviously.  But the fact that they do validate me while I can't even truly accept myself or feel a sense of belonging in my own skin...this is troubling.  I only believe I have good qualities, that I'm worth liking because other people do indeed like me, not because I see these qualities myself.  Who hopes to find validation in other people rather than in herself?  An unhappy lady, that's who.

My one resolution this year is simple and yet so, so complicated.  I've only told one person what this resolution is, but maybe it's better to get it down in writing.

New Year's Resolution 2011: Be happy.

I realize that this post is pretty sad to read, but I'm not writing it to seek sympathy or encouragement from anyone.  I'm pretty sure it probably doesn't even make sense to a lot of other people.  But that doesn't matter because it makes sense to me--isn't that the point?  I'm writing it for myself, to get to the heart of what made 2010 a bad year. 

I should not feel the need to hide pieces of myself in order to please people.  I can't please everyone.  This is my life, and only I can live it.  Yes, there are good people in my life who want the best for me, and I need to be considerate of them and their opinions.  But I really need to focus on learning to like who I am right now, regardless of how others feel about me or my path in life, and hopefully the person I become on my life-path will like herself too.

For the record, I love you guys, and I'm grateful for years of validation.  I just need to be able to say that to myself now.  Here's to 2011.