Frankly Put: 3 Positive Things I Am Learning to Accept About Me
It has been a whole year now since I began to post on this platform in the form of some sort of blog and truly there has been some unconscious learning. A season of tough unravelling questions as I battled what to upload and when to do so, has made me open my eyes to some things.
I have spent the past 52 weeks writing as it came, trying to keep my thoughts organized and learning to accept the production and sharing of things that are unpolished and imperfect in my eyes. Addressing certain topics such as self-love on this non-audio podcast, has been very shaking to the dust I hid in the blankets that I thought were keeping me warm. Now, I shall address things that I have been seeing in a negative light that are actually good things, about me.
I care — Albeit rarely, but deeply
Naturally a very nonchalant person, I have come to uncover that in some cases I perhaps had an active role in continuing to portray that image that I had created in the eyes of those around me.
Recently, I had a conversation with someone I had not met in a long time and within that meet up he said something a little core-shaking. He said, “I have always taken you as someone who didn’t care what others thought about you.” While there may not be a lie there, I cannot admit to it being completely true through and through. I care.
I suppose with the experiences life has handed me in character development, (in the so many years since we spoke, he and I) I have been exposed to the cracks in my nature. It is time to come clean and admit, I do care what people think about me. Granted, a select few but those select few hold a high seat in the seeking of validation in my life. I don’t think I shall tell who those are but I can admit that they exist.
I am extroverted.
Well, more accurately an ambivert, this houses in me the conflict of the two sides. For the longest time, I thought that perhaps I was majorly introverted as I enjoyed my own company and it recharged me when from time to time when I would withdraw and isolate myself from humans.
As a result of the pattern, I found a tendency to lean into that as a go-to. The catch 22 is that in that isolation, after a while I would begin to slip and meet lows often and take longer to come up for air. This however would change when I would say yes to plans and would feel recharged by being around people.
I am no longer in denial and will admit it, I do want to be around people. In as much as I enjoy myself by my lonesome, the lonesome does get lonely and my extroverted nature needs to interact with people. It is not negative for me to wish to hang out with people.
Calm, collected, confident
The irony with this is that I am uncovering that perhaps it was an insecurity that I am not loud. I am not talkative and expressive. Did this make me feel less than in some scenarios? Yes. Did I let that consume me and make me less inclined to step out and grab hold of opportunities? Yes.
I can call to mind a specific story. After clearing high school, I was very undecided on what I wanted to pursue moving into uni and the hesitation that I had in that period slowed me from applying to uni and although I was already being pulled in one direction, I held on to choice two a bit too long such that choice one suffered.
On finally deliberating exactly what I wanted to do in uni, then came the issue of which uni to pursue the course in. I was admitted to the one I had wanted and on advice, the others I had applied to. The issue is that I had been taken in a year later in the uni I wanted and that opened up the opportunity to the others.
On this particular day, I was to go to collect my papers from choice 3. From the gate I knew inside, I was not an immediate fit but heck I am adaptable so I ignored it. However, as I was picking my papers from the secretary of the departmental office she said something that loudened the voice. She said, “Eh kijana, you have qualified lakini sijui kama hii ni shule yako. We ni mpole sana. (for my non-Kenyan readers — Young man, you have qualified but I don’t know if this is the school for you. You are too soft-spoken.”
At that moment, I only nodded and walked off. On the bus, I couldn’t really argue out of it and perhaps it was just a little bit more pronounced than other times but that was me, truthfully. In spite of the acceptance, I think perhaps I took it like I was not strong enough, confident enough as a man. Which is not further away from the truth.
Just because I am not speaking at a volume as if I am addressing a rally or aggressive in my presence, I don’t have to be. Granted, in some situations it may be needed and I can access that part of me, it isn’t me and that doesn’t make me any less than.
Ironically, I began to see that simply by the fact that I wasn’t those things there was a tendency to be selected for various endeavours going forward. Thus I remain, calm, collected, confident.
Perhaps I spent too long labelling my water bottles “poison” and it’s time I tasted and drank of the things I needed when I was dying of thirst, to put it Frankly.
