confidence?

this post has been sitting in my que for months. it's a post that probably doesn't seem like it goes anywhere but regardless they are some thoughts i've had for awhile... 

Confidence. An interesting  topic...it can be so personal and yet also so public.

It is something i struggled a lot with growing up. I was never the "popular" girl with tons of friends or super outgoing. I grew up pretty lonely and it wasn't until high school that i finally made some close friends. I think a big reason for a lot of my isolation was loosing my father at such a young age. Over night i was forced to grow up and be independent (maybe not forced but it is what i felt like i needed to do). i spent endless nights laying in bed wishing i had a close friend. i so badly wanted someone to talk to and to trust and yet had no one.

It wasn't until I hit high school that I started to slowly let my guard down and open up...and as soon as I thought I had found someone I could finally relate to she was taken from me and from this world...and a month later my grandfather passed. i endured a lot of loss at a young age. It was one hit after another. My relationships with people seemed like they would always be temporary. And it effected how i saw myself and how i thought others saw me. About half way through high school i started to hit my first boost of confidence. I had finally found a group of close good friends who believed in me, who listened to me, and who were just there for me. It is amazing how much confidence a simple friendship can instill. I slowly allowed myself to trust others and with that came this sense of confidence in myself.

I slowly was able to build on that. After moving to Corvallis and to a new town with new people it was easier to just hold your head a little higher and pretend you were more confident then you were. People are sometimes quite easily fooled. I've always been able to fake just the right amount of confidence in interviews or in meetings. I have a professional side that can walk the walk and talk the talk but sometimes in the quietness of my own self I don't always feel that confident. I of course have my moments when i feel great and on top of the world and those are the times we should focus on. but lets be honest, in a world where we all strive for perfection we are usually the furthest thing from it. 

and sometimes i wonder why im trying and working so hard when it seems like i only encounter set back after set back. why can't I ever seem to just grab what im researching for?  but then i remember that nothing in life comes easy, nothing in my life has ever come easy. and when i really look back, ive always been thankful for the path i've had to go through to get where I am regardless of how painful it was. and i'm sure in a couple years i will look back and think the same thing. 

I am thankful that most days i do feel confident and i do feel like i can go out and conquer the world but we all have our days. Our days where we don't want to get up, where we don't want to talk to anyone, and where we just want to wallow in some self pity for a bit but those are the days where we need to fake a little of that confidence or hold on to someone else's. When you say a friendly hello to someone in the hall, or smile at someone in the parking lot, something so simple can boost someones confidence so much. I know those small acts of kindness help, they have helped me. Things do get better, and things do happen for a reason. Maybe not always in our ideal timeline but as life goes on some things start to make a little more sense. 

i am aware that this is not my normal kind of post. but today i felt like it was time to share this. like i said in the beginning, these are nearly some thoughts that have been on my mind for months. and i am ready to finally just throw them out into the world. 

hope you have a simply confident wednesday.