I just want to know I'm alright

I remember one time I was happy. Things were going seemingly well and I had hope. But my good friend fear kept whispering into my ear telling me of all the things I should worry about. The terrifying what-ifs, statistics I was ignoring, the lack of knowledge, and of course, all my previous experience that would tell me otherwise. 

One morning, I was sitting with my mother having coffee or snacks or both and we began talking about life. Somehow I had begun to assume I was going to die sooner than later. Perhaps this wasn't a feeling but rather a wish. When she asked why, I told her it was because I expected bad things to happen.  I was living in a state of constantly waiting for all the chips to fall and the walls to come crumbling down.

This was a few years ago and by that time I had known suffering. I dwelled in it. For me, whenever I began to feel good and happy, sadness and torment would be waiting for me. 

This was also at the height of my humbleness when I thought the only way I deserved anything--even life itself--was through suffering. 

I told my mother this. She looked at me and said, "No, you've suffered enough. Now's your time to be happy."

C.S. Lewis wrote, "True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less." 

When I was a young girl and first heard the word, "humble," I wanted to use it all the time. And because I had been a brat at times, I was eager to not only understand the word, but embody the word. 

For some reason, and I'm not sure who taught me this, but I watched the world exist and concluded the word meant: to think of yourself as a piece of shit. 

I think most of it came from my mother. Not from anything she said, but as a child she was my hero and I would watch her repeatedly get metaphorically shit on. By everyone--even me at times. But she always remained what I knew to be, "humble." 

I'm not going to lie, I've always wanted fame and fortune so I could one day make my mother proud and give her the world on a Tiffany's silver platter. If anyone deserved good things it was her. 

So I began to quest for fame and fortune. In all seriousness this isn't what I was really going after, but definitely hoped for it to be an aftereffect. It's disgusting I know, but all I wanted to do was be able to give back to my family and this seemed the only way. 

Each person and/or family has their own love language and I hadn't realized what mine was until one I day I showed up to meet a friend with a small gift for her. I must've done this before because in her gleeful appreciation she said, "This is your love language. You show your love with gifts don't you."

My mom's love language is through gifts too. Not because she wants to buy your love in return, but because she's just that generous. Do the lines ever get blurred? They most certainly do and while I can't speak for her, I know my gifts aren't always free. 

When I fall in love, I fall in love. This goes for friendships too. Sometimes you just meet a friend you have to have in your life--like the rest of the world will be in complete black and white but there's that one person who exists in color. So I might adorn them with little gifts because I love them and I want them to know so badly how loved they are. 

I don't do this so much these days. In fact, some might call me "tight." I've had to learn how to be too, because I know what I'm capable of. Experience tells me to not be so frivolous and giving--having been heartbroken and deserted by friends, lovers, and family. But when I say I would take a bullet for some people in my life that's because... I think I actually would.

My father's mother was notorious for buying your love. Some people thought of her as a real bitch too. Which, well... she could be. But I think it all stemmed from her suffering. She had so much to prove that when she set off for fame and fortune, she was never going to be a mistake again. She then strove for perfection. 

I strove for a different kind of perfection--to be perfectly humbled and welcoming to all things the world offered. Including it's least wanted such as pain, suffering, heartache, stupidity, etc... The world would pitch these little babies by something something like, "No one else wants these poor little things." "You know Jesus suffered too." "Suffering will make you a stronger and better person." "If you're not suffering you're not living." "People who don't suffer aren't made of much."

So by the time I reached the age where I was sitting with my mother, talking about life, the idea had been firmly planted that all I was meant to do in life was suffer. That if I ever wanted to amount to anything or ever felt good about myself, I would be considered selfish and conceited. 

This may sound like a shock to some of you but look at the world around you. No one can look good, have good things, or feel good without coming off as an undeserving lucky bastard. And perhaps some of us are.

How many of us have mistaken the definition of humility as thinking less of ourselves? It's not because we're thinking about others more either. If anything, we're buying things and the love of others because we haven't learned to love ourselves or be happy alone.

It seems like such a strange concept to love ourselves the way we are when we live a world that's constantly telling us to change who we are. 

I battle with these thoughts every day. Has it gotten better? Yes. Every year and every day I become a better, stronger person. But my mind continues to play tug-o-war. 

I wonder if I'm humble enough. I wonder if I'm doing enough. I wonder if I'm making the right choices, or better yet--not making bad decisions. I wonder if I truly understand good and bad, wrong and right--or if I'm fooling myself into believing things that are just that engrained into my brain. 

Am I reading enough? Eating enough? Walking enough? Writing enough?

And am I writing what I should? Is this much honesty good or that healthy?

Am I crazy? This question always makes me chuckle. 

Am I failing? Because for some reason, it feels like I am. I just feel like I'm not doing enough and all I want is God or someone, or even a fly on the wall, to just tell me I'm alright. That I'm doing alright. 

I've adopted the C.S. Lewis definition of humility and work on it every day. The process isn't perfect but--will it ever be?

Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less
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