#a worthwhile investment if you’re as entirely obsessed with this movie as I am

[leahdrawsstuff]

obsessed with this description of the baker husband from Kiki’s Delivery Service

[sincerelybillie]

on liking yourself when others dislike you

do you think you could handle knowing, at the rate and visibility of social media “likes” and praise, how many people cannot stand you? i think about this often - how i myself do sometimes quantify and qualify my work and my worth based on the affirmation i receive, read and hear. and years of self-growth and self-love aside, to look at yourself through rose-coloured glasses isn’t any much healthier than picking at the scabs of your own insecurities. whether you’re healed or not, you’re not above self-examination. i’m really learning that these days. 

there’s a lot to unpack here, so i hope you’re comfy. because i’m about to get uncomfy.

 and again, the thoughts burst to the forefront of my brain and again i, in the paralysis and then dull pain of honest self-reflection, spat them down as bullet points. things that sting just as much removing an old and actual bullet from a body that’s gotten too accustomed to its own damage and romanticized being a warrior whose bones can no longer be broken w sticks, stones, or anything for that matter. but none of us are that untouchable. we wouldn’t be human. 

in middle school, stephanie and sarah started a myspace comment thread about my eczema and how they didn’t want to be near me in the locker rooms during P.E. because they didn’t want to have “lizard skin” like me. i found out about their lifetime movie school bully behaviour after they’d been discussing me for weeks (which was honestly weirder than any skin condition i had? you’re preteen girls obsessively talking about my mostly naked prepubescent body that experiences dry skin sometimes? which isn’t contagious?) anyways, they both ended up having severe, cystic acne for much of their teenhood, and i always felt secure in knowing karma did a much better job than any revenge i could have employed at such a young age. i’d known stephanie since we were in first grade, and sarah was one of the “bad girls” who started wearing excessive eyeliner and push up bras before the rest of us. i guess stephanie felt like she needed to invest in something like that, for social currency. sarah got beat up a few times, i think, because other girls caught word of her trash talking. i think stephanie knew how to be strategic in her associations and never actually had to be held accountable for being shitty. i don’t know what happened to either of them, but i remember being really smug about my clear skin and the state of their faces when i found them on facebook in high school. this wasn’t productive. this didn’t make me a good person. and i guess i just always wanted to believe anyone who didn’t like me was in the wrong and would receive a cosmic consequence for being a dick to me.

let’s head to my early twenties where my first full time job with an organization i spent two years with showed me i was wrong. there were still coworkers who disliked me for really petty reasons, who still acted like spiteful and gossipy middle school bullies or were passive aggressive towards me for reasons that really didn’t make anymore sense than hating me for my allergies did. but i did have to hear and internalize and change the fact that i was too aggressive in my work ethic, isolated people who i felt didn’t work as hard as me, didn’t open up to people because i came across like nobody was worth knowing me or being trusted, was too opinionated, verbose, competitive, elitist. i couldn’t believe i could be considered these things, and anyone who called me that must have really misunderstood my commitment and my values. they were stupid and wrong. i was right. there was nothing for me to change here. but i was wrong because even if some of them had discussed me behind my back in separate group chats, behaved unprofessionally towards me, or stopped interacting w me entirely outside of mandated work environments, it didn’t automatically invalidate any and all other feedback they could have given me. it didn’t lose its legitimacy just because it was coming from someone i didn’t consider a friend with valuable insight. and because i placed so much value on the connections and thoughts of people i mutually respected, knew, and trusted, it was hard to swallow truths handed out by strangers, estranged friends, acquaintances or people i just thought sucked. 

i stifled my own growth by not listening to them because i thought loving myself and hearing what people who aren’t cool with me had to say were mutually exclusive. i chose to only hear half the conversation because that’s what served me. because only hearing criticisms and insults was so poor for my mental health, that i had to swing the pendulum as hard as i could in the other direction. and that may have felt better most of the time, but it didn’t make me better long-term. 

at the benefit of my sanity in this digital age, i don’t see who or how many people ignore my snapchat stories, screenshot my ig stories or discuss them when i’m not around, hate what i post, roll their eyes at my captions, or click thumbs down on my youtube videos, whether or not they watched the whole thing. but i know that people do it. i know some people choose to continue following me on social media or being friends w me because they want that mutual follow, despite never really interacting w me - positively or otherwise - on the particular platform. it’s a numbers game. they hate seeing their follower count drop more than they hate seeing me. i know i’ve been blocked, unfriended, and called names i can’t respond to before they press that button, a power move to get the last word in that i myself am guilty of using. my ex boyfriend made a hate account for me when we broke up. my numbers drop a little by a couple people on different platforms almost immediately after i share something that i guess people determine is enough of seeing me and my opinons on their timelines or feeds. my roommates talk about me and hide their ig stories from me. one of them reads my tweets, but doesn’t follow me, but she's given me a lot of valuable insight and feedback herself; the other throws temper tantrums, so i know where to put more relationship energy based on maturity and respect. i can’t explain human behaviour, my own or theirs when it comes to this. i could obsess over what possible reason anyone could have to decide to do these things. i could obsess over what possible reason anyone could have to think i’m not incredible. and that’s pathetic of me to do so, to assume so. 

so many things could be a blow to the ego if i let it matter enough. but how do you know when something is insignificant and when something is a sign? my impatience w what i consider “poor performance” has made me seem pretentious, unapproachable, and aloof. so i built up my empathy muscle, i started sharing how things made me feel, what i needed from people, asking them what they needed from me, listening, giving - and that has made a monumental difference in my relationships. i have less of them now (relationships), because it is not a numbers game, but the ones i have i enjoy and i put the work in to grow and maintain, like any other garden, talent, muscle, bond. if i care enough and because i care. 

apathy isn’t cool. we are not above being hurt or taking it personally, wondering what we did wrong instead of just as often deciding that person is trash anyways. so good riddance. ha ha, quality over quantity, yeah i’m never wavering from that perspective! 

but i do waver because as (un)fortunate, (in)convenient, confusing, or exciting as it can be, these perceptions of “what makes me great”, “why does everyone hate me”, “i’m good enough”, “i’m untouchable”, and “i’m trash” are fluid. influenced by read receipts, break ups, little to no interaction w people you have shared laughs and important times with, technology, celebrities and pop culture, childhood flashbacks, adulthood anxieties, etc. 

i’m still trying to make sense of this all. maybe you are where i am at on some or many days as well. i hope i, and you (but i can really only speak for myself, i have to remind myself on this blog) can understand what makes me a remarkable person doesn’t scream louder than the parts i should work on, doesn’t shine so much that i don’t need touch ups or entire renovations of how i act, think, and treat myself and others.

and adversely, people can dislike me because they dislike themselves or because they’re generally bad people w bad taste…or they can dislike me because there are things that i do, real behaviours that are mine, that are dislikable. bad. ugly. allowed to be criticized. allowed to be unwanted.

i can do something about them or i can let my precious, problematic ego inflate while my potential for growth and reconcilable, worthwhile relationships deteriorate. why do i preserve what i preserve? why do i overlook what i overlook? scoffs, tears, eye rolls, thank you’s, hugs. 

i have all this self-awareness and all these options. i just don’t have the foresight to know what is the correct button to press. maybe part of growing up is just taking that journey, for all its guts and glory, because we’re not entitled to the ending we think we deserve. we experience the consequences of our actions, the actions of others, sometimes we get lucky, we get better, we get hurt. i have to be okay w all that, i have to learn and never stop learning from all that. even if, no matter what i become or do or say, people still decide they don’t like me. 

after all, the end game isn’t likability, despite how sick these social media games can make us. my end game, my always game is just growth, goodness, the willingness to experience the refreshing pain of honest self-evaluation and re-calibration. as much as i can see greatness in myself, i’m not above being told there’s something ugly and bad that needs to be looked at too. removed.

maybe this isn’t enough for the people reading who don’t like me. is it insincere? irresponsible? i’m not here to please you or get you to like me; i need to be better, no matter what. this is the truth of how i feel and what i’ve been thinking. 

yes, i like myself. enough to see past mindless hate and not change myself to accommodate others, but also enough to recognize when i need to make real change for everyone’s benefit of being/knowing a better me. 

this is what needed to be said.