#meforreal

MC: ruin it

I desperately, deeply, more than I ever want to admit, want you to like me.

For some, this means making sure makeup is right, hair is curled, or carrying the bag of the moment. For others, it means getting the degree, the accolades, the job, the promotion. No matter what it is, you can pare it down to a single message - you aren’t good enough, and you need to change these things about yourself to become good enough.

Trust me, there is no “good enough.” It’s a place that doesn;t exist in the outside world.

I’m writing this because HLN is launching a series called #MeForReal this week. and I’m really excited to be a part of it. It’s about the world we live in and the ways we try to fit into that world, a world that is more visual and self-proclamatory than ever. We can define who we are in a more curated way than we ever have been able to before, and in a prettier way, thanks to Instagram filters. As a result, we see one another in ways that are us, but also not quite. And then we compare our insides to other people’s outsides, and we think that we could be more, better, if we were more like them and less like us.

My shame, as well as one of the most authentic parts of me, is that I play video games. In fact, I built a career on it, one I had no idea I was building because I was too busy passionately writing about them for anyone who would let me. I also never got a formal education. My life has been spent questioning my own intelligence, my worthiness, asking myself questions that I needed answers to: Would I be more lovable if I was less nerdy? Thinner? More together? If I had gone to college? 

At 37, I still struggle with some of the answers. But, I’m also lucky that at this age, I’ve had to grow into my own skin a bit, to accept that no matter how hard I try to manipulate some of the things about me I wish were different, they aren’t going to change. I’ve had to follow that need to be liked down to its source and see what part of me is still a little kid that wants to be loved and accepted. I’ve had to see the love others have for me in their eyes and realized they found me lovable even if I achieved nothing at all, looked my worst, laughed my most unattractive laugh. In fact, those people loved me MORE for those things, and I was unable to turn away from the me that I saw in them, reflected back to me.

#MeForReal is unique, and also not. Humans are messy, and so am I. We are afraid to be real, and so am I. We’re afraid to die, and so am I. And we’re afraid to live. I’m afraid to love myself. I don’t know how. We aren’t born knowing. It’s a process we spend our whole lives on. So here I am, 37 years old, about to be 38 soon, still not sure. And I’m starting to see that there is devastating beauty in not being sure, because we are completely vulnerable when we admit we don’t know. In that vulnerability is a seed of the person we are for real. Me for real is writing these words right now, telling you that I don’t know. And that my most lovable, wonderful, incredible self is right now, here, the frightened, unsure, vulnerable self. It’s quite the opposite of the thin, well-dressed, well-educated self.