My insecurities

Heads Up

This post comes from someone in the alienation phase of reverse culture shock (also known as the irritability and hostility phase).  The thoughts and emotions expressed here seem more dramatic than usual, but this transition makes life more dramatic than usual.  Also, my heart has been hurt.  For some reason, I've decided to write about it.

Is security with yourself something you're born with and is then taken away or is it something you have to learn and be taught?

You know, I have friends younger than me and older than me who aren't afraid of what people think of them.  They are so confident being themselves.  They are beautiful, vibrant, and interesting.  I like to think most people are beautiful, vibrant, and interesting, but these people I know are so unapologetically bold, that they stand out in just the right way.

I wish I were like them.

I with I didn't care about being popular and about everybody liking me.

Be true to yourself.  Don't worry about what other people think.  Their approval isn't important.

SO WHY DO I WANT THEIR ACCEPTANCE??!!

My feelings get hurt when I'm not included.

I worry about being weird when I get a strange response from something I said.

 I imagine I'm friendless when I discover I haven't been invited to that thing everyone else is going to.

I feel foolish when I realize I am embarrassingly inappropriately dressed for a night out at a bar.  (I didn't know what people wore for those kinds of evenings.)

So I'll try to remember the things my brave, secure friends said or what they would say.

Why would I want to be close friends with those people anyway?  Their lifestyle isn't the one I always want for myself.

One of the reasons you weren't invited was because you were usually with a different group of friends, right?  And you really enjoyed being with that group, didn't you?

You were made to be you, you have been given a personalized collage of God's own personality, you were made for Him, and you were not made for others.

Actually, I really just want a hug and for someone to tell me I'm okay.  I don't want to hear these words from me, I want to hear them from someone who loves me.  It's when these truths come from a voice that I trust that they mean something.  Right now, they're only half truths.

But, I bet I'm not alone.  I do know that much.  And I know I do have people who love me.

One day I will be in a place where I completely belong.

I've been yearning for that day and that place a little more than usual lately.
It gets better, I know, but I wish I were more resilient and that I arrived at these low places on a much rarer basis.  Is security something you can learn at 24?