There’s a person in my life whom I call a friend. He thinks I’m fabulous, beautiful and fun to be around. You can see why we are friends. But as we have become closer he has started to challenge me. He has begun to see through my carefully crafted exterior. The “me” I show to the world. Not my blog me who reveals my questions, my doubts, my struggles. But the “me” I bring to Starbucks...smiling, positive, happy, outgoing, confident.
But this friend sees through my veneer and asks questions. The kinds of questions I have been carefully avoiding for years. The ones I haven’t even shared here. The ones I have scripted answers to that I convince myself are true, but that have real answers that I keep locked away in a box somewhere deep inside of me.
He knows this about me. Not because I told him, but because he’s basically a pain in the a** who won’t take no for an answer. Who isn’t satisified with my carefully crafted answers.
He’s a friend who doesn’t allow me to settle. Who challenges me, makes me think and forces me to open the locked box and consider the truth. But I don’t always want to face the truth. I like my excuses and my justifications better. Then I don’t have to grow, change, improve. I can stay where I am…content and comfortable.
The only problem is, I am not content and comfortable because avoidance doesn’t bring peace, it brings anxst. Anxst that expresses itself in questions, doubts, struggles, like I share here. Causing me to question if I’m really Just Livin’ Life or if I’m trying to convince myself that I am.
