The other day I was looking through some things that I wrote a couple years ago, and I came across this. I kinda liked it:
"I always have
this fear that one day you are going to discover that I'm not as great as you
once thought I was. <--this is to be alone.
Once
upon a time, I surrounded myself with a wall. Not just any wall… not just wall
of sticks or stones. I surrounded myself with a fortress. A mental fortress.
Impossible for even the strongest to penetrate. I was determined, so very
determined, that I would be the only one allowed inside my fortress. I did not
want to be close to other people. Confined within the walls that I had so
carefully constructed, I was able to create my own world. I had my own dreams
and lived my own destiny. I did not want others to truly know me. Within me
resided the fear that one day I would be discovered. But no! I would not let
that happen. The truth is; I was afraid. Afraid to let people befriend me, afraid
to let them discover who I truly was. I was not perfect. In fact, I was far
from it. I raised the expectations for myself to a height where I almost
expected myself to achieve perfection – but I was never able to do so. I felt
that those around me wanted me to be so perfect that they expected more of me
than I was able to give. It was a panicked feeling, the feeling that I was not
good enough, that I could never be good enough. I gave myself the appearance of
someone who was to be desired, loved. I was, I suppose you could say, popular,
adored. But that wasn’t the real me, that was a disguise that I had thrown on
top of my real identity because I didn’t want people to know that I wasn’t
really as great as they thought I was. But living a lie, while the lie may have
looked good, made me an outcast on the inside. I had forbidden myself to grow
close to anyone, because I knew that that would mean uncovering who I truly
was. I had no one to talk to about my deepest troubles, no one to confide in. I
knew that I was a broken person – but I didn’t want others to know. But then, slowly,
I began to realize, that to live with the fearful mindset of wanting to be
great only because I wanted to keep people from discovering the true me – that
mindset is loneliness, solitude. And I was alone. I realized that I’d rather
have people see the true, plain, not-all-that-interesting me, rather than be
alone. So I tore down the wall. Bit by bit, it all came crashing down around
me. If I had previously stood a princess, now I stood a pauper. My life changed
drastically. Many rejected me. I had expected this; people did indeed realize
that I was not as great as I had once claimed to be. But then there were others
who stuck by me. People who truly did understand, people who didn’t care who I
was or that I was so imperfect. Those were the people who were real. They were
real enough to realize that not everyone is perfect, that everyone makes
mistakes. They understood that people hurt, that everyone falls down. And those
friends are the people who, when I did fall down, were able to pick me up
again."
