Who Am I?

You would think that 30 some years on this earth would make this an easy question to answer, but everyday I come across certain things or people that make me question my very existence. You probably don't have that problem, you most likely have your s**** together (pardon my french). I feel like a teenager still swimming upstream and fighting tooth and nail to fit in. I read blog posts from friends and think, "Oh man! I don't sound anything like that when I write. They are so much more polished than me". Or I listen to people on podcasts or on periscope and think, "I would never be taken seriously and people wouldn't want to follow my podcast or periscope. I'm just not as cool as her." It's like I am stuck, permanently, in my teenage years. I just can't shake the idea that I just am kidding myself, I am not the "voice" that people want to hear. I'm never going to be asked to co-host any new thing or be asked to speak or be asked to lead in any capacity. People find me laughable, or at least that is the tape playing in my head. I wanted to give up writing here, who actually reads this crap anyway? But, I have to give myself a chance. I am late to the game and blogging is being replaced with other forms of communication. Could I do more with this? My head says most likely not, it plays the tape of the parent telling me that I couldn't make it as an actress, even though it's all I every wanted to be (other than a mom). It plays the tapes of the two failed auditions, the room full of pretty popular girls in a PR group that I wanted to join, but once I got there and saw them I turned around and walked away. It plays the tape of all the boys I had crushes on who never gave me the time of day or who made it there personal mission to humiliate me. The tape overrides every good thing I have done and replaces it with yet another failure that looms ever present, growing larger with each passing day, eventually blocking out all happy tapes completely. I don't even know what I can pull from as a successful moment in my life. This is hard! Sitting here typing and knowing that it most likely will all be a waste of time, is SO hard for me. I have always wanted to be the best at everything, I learned random facts just so that I could pull them out in conversation and feel important. I like knowing everything so that people come to me for help, it makes me feel important and sadly I feel like they will love me more if they need me. Sad,huh? I was never the artist like my sister and I wasn't a good baseball player like two of my brothers and I wasn't the autistic one like my youngest brother. I was just the annoying older sister who tried too hard, wore her feelings on her sleeve, made it easy to pick on and who lived her best days lost in a world of make believe because at least there it would be nicer and I could be someone special. Even writing those things makes me so mad at myself....boo hoo! woe is me! What an idiot! I can hear my whole family say, "You are too sensitive, Maria!"  And the saddest part of all, is that even with all that, I still try so hard to be better. I still try to be find myself, I still work everyday at doing what I would like to do, even if I do it badly. I have high expectations of myself and when, inevitably, I fail then watch out for the waterworks. I wonder if I'll ever just give up and stop trying so hard. I wonder if I'll ever just say, "I'm nothing special, stop trying and just go through the motions of life and wait for death." My heart hurts, but it keeps telling me to keep reaching, keep moving forward. Am I just kidding myself or will it work out in the end? Jury is still out for that one.

     I went to a Catholic Women's Conference over the weekend and I heard about God's mercy and how much He loves his daughter's.......I nodded along......I believed every word of it, but only for those around me, it was hard to think of that mercy and love being delivered to me. I am nobody, I am not very good at many things and not sure if I'm good at anything. I know that this is a pity party and I am upset with myself for writing all this out, it makes me feel weak. But, there it is......who am I? I'm a hot, lonely mess.....wishing desperately that I could be someone else, someone cooler and more talented, someone prettier, thinner, better with words, likeable, loveable, anybody other than me.