The stranger in the mirror

What if. What if I'm really ... oh, God, I'm so lost. What if I'm not really this brave and bold and confident girl that I know I'm just pretending to be, all toppy and in control, because that's how I see I can survive, how I can make it through life, but what if I'm just a girl who wants to be loved and who wants simply to love and all this shit of all my confidence is just an act saying that I have it together, but I know I don't. I thought I was supposed to be finished asking these questions in high school! That was too hard already, and now I'm facing them again? And it's like nothing that I've lived is helping me cope at all! And if I'm not brave and bold and confident, but really, really, really this shy little weak thing ... I mean: how do I be now? Who the fuck wants to love a weak little mousy girl? I'm not that! I can't be that! I can't. How can I look in the mirror now and say 'I'm beautiful' like I asked you to when I don't even know what the 'I' is anymore that's supposed to be beautiful?

You know what did it to me? Me in a yellow sun dress, picking flowers. I just saw me like that, so happy, so loved by a woman who's so powerful and confident that she can just hold me as I sleep and just be there, just so be there that I can just give myself completely to her and just let down all my defenses and defensiveness and just be with her as just me and not pretend to be confident or strong or whatever.

And that's so not how it's supposed to be. I'm supposed to be the strong and confident one, independent, the kick-ass girl, reliable, a world-class writer. I don't need to be supported. I support.

But then why does this one little figment call to me so powerfully that I can't even think. And so just one little fancy and my whole world is ... in turmoil.

God, I haven't slept, and now I have to go to work and pretend to be a cheerful-busy barista. Maybe work will clear my head of this shit, and I can go back to pretending to be me.

But we've got to survive somehow, girls, right? And we so can't let anybody see into us. Because then they'd 'find out,' right? And we can't allow that, now, can we, Rosalie ... and Jasper? Yeah, spoiler alert, and yeah, I write what I know. This next chapter is just so much fun.

"Update soon, 'phfina." Yeah. Thanks for that. Here, have a cookie; sorry: there's some salt on it, and, yes, I just washed my face.

Yeah, my next screed will be about updating soon. And no, you can't push me even a tenth as hard as my demons push me, so you are so not allowed to have pity parties ... like I do. Yeah, working on that, too, okay?

kisses, 'phfina