Expression

All of my closest friends could tell you that I hate to express my true feelings. I even hate to express my true feelings to myself. I feel guilty complaining about the trials in my life because I know that God has blessed me with so much. Blessings that I don't deserve. I wonder why I am so lucky considering all of the hurt that our world sees right now. Therefore, I always try to take a positive outlook on every situation--good or bad. Which this is definitely a good philosophy the majority of the time. Unfortunately, in the process, I hide a lot of my feelings because I feel guilty expressing them. With all that is going well in my life, how can I complain about a few things that go awry?

Today, I had a revelation while playing piano. First of all, music has a way of tapping into my emotions. I can get lost in my head when I'm playing. In the end, I would guess that composers want their music to "strike a chord" (please excuse extremely corny phrase, but I just couldn't resist!) within everyone that either plays or hears the piece. When I play a piece of music, I don't have to feel guilty for expressing my melancholy mood for that's the emotion that this certain piece is trying to express to the listener (or in my case the performer). Who knew that some notes slapped on a page could help me become honest with myself, and better yet not feel guilty about it.

Breakin' Out at Dawn

Let me preface this with in general currently I'm in a very good place in my life and quite happy with who I am...

With that said, sometimes I feel imprisoned by my insecurities. Currently, I feel that my true self is screaming inside of me telling me to break down these barriers and just be the wacky, crazy kid God made me to be. God loves me, so why shouldn't I love myself--and for that matter--why shouldn't others love me too? So I can't help but ask myself, what am I scared of? What fears build up these walls? I wish I could tap into that same sense of security that I feel when I'm around my friends from college when I'm trying to make new friends.

I think I just realized that (if all things go well), I haven't even begun to live my life. Though this realization is thoroughly exciting, it also scares me. I have free will. I can do what I want. No longer am I bound by the formal education system. I have so many people to meet. I can only imagine what God has lined up for me. Though it's pretty cool to have God as your boss, it's also intimidating. He's all knowing, while I lack most knowledge, yet He trusts me to do His work. Yikes! For my life, I've been more concerned about my own goals than the goals that God has for me. God could have probably cared less about the grades I got in my classes, oh but I cared enough for the both of us. Now, I'm becoming less aware of my own goals and more aware of the fact that I have no idea what God's goals are for me. So far, my main fears have revolved around not attaining the extremely high standards that I set for myself. However, I'm pretty sure that it's quite a bit more intimidating thinking about not attaining the goals that God has set for me. Double yikes! I have 2 years guaranteed here in DC then who knows...

However, I've determined that it's my stupid insecurities that will be the death of me and will prevent me from attaining the goals that God has set for me. Probably, by the time I finish my 2 year possition, I'll have just broken down the walls holding me back from being my true self around my newly found friends. I'm scared that I'll chicken out of moving onto bigger and better things because I've found comfort in my friendships. It's killed me being away from me friends in IL. I strangely feel like I have to reclaim myself, which is rediculous. I'm here, I just have to figure out how to get me out. Probably, I'm a little too independent. However, a lot of that has to do with the fact that no one is dependent on me. All of my friends from IL are starting to settle down. I however am on this 2 year layover until my next flight to an unknown destination.

The hardest thing for me about moving to a new city, alone, is that I have to break into social circles. People already have their closest friends--they don't need me. I'm just the sprinkles on top of the cake. You don't really need them, but they're nice to have around every once in awhile. I'm terrified of feeling alone for the rest of my life. Especially, since I might move in 2 years, then I get to do all of this fun stuff again. Yeeha!

It's this fear of being alone that could potentially prevent me from living the life that God intended for me and for me being the person He created me to be. This all stems back to my stupid insecurities. I'm scared to be my true self around people I don't know so well, but who wants to invest a couple months into a relationship with boring Adrienne to get the chance to meet cool Adrienne? My life would be a lot easier if I just would break down these walls. The funny thing is I really like myself when I'm being my true self, but am not as much of a fan of myself when I'm being the guarded me. One would think that would cause me to overcome this fear faster, but no it doesn't (I'm a slow learner!)

Therefore, I'm making the claim that everyday at dawn I'm going to try and break down these walls that prevent me from being the fun person God made me to be.