an underestimation//and the fight that ensues.

i've made this wonderful (online) friend.  she doesn't know i'm her friend, but i like to think that if we met in real face-to-face life, we would be.

when i sit down and read her stories, the ones that take place some 2,500 miles from me, i can see us walking through life as kindred spirits, sitting on the front porch of one of our homes, drinking sweet tea, bonding over our affinity for the elderly, giggling over long lost love, and the currents that capture our hearts.

but you see, our friendship, as i like to think it, looks a bit different when all you have is the vast and fast paced world we call the Internet, to keep you connected.  my kindred spirits, my would be friends are those who take the time to sit down and write their stories down to share for any random stranger's eyes to behold.  it's really a quite odd formation to a connection, but i enjoy it so.

there is one gal in particular who i frequently read, and when she posts something new, I get so excited.  and it is not a read it on the spot excited, its waiting until i have a moment of quiet and peace where i can curl up in my desk chair with a cup of tea, open the window so i have fresh air blowing in, and then i pop open my laptop and find where i've bookmarked her writings, and i read, and i breathe, and it is a beautiful moment that is always sure to inspire and uplift my soul.

and i wonder if my writing could bring that to somebody?  and i wonder if my friendship could? i wonder if as a teacher i breathe that life and bring that excitement in?  i wonder...and in this wondering the strangest thing happened. 

do you ever come across moments where you suddenly realize: i've never thought this thought before. some days, as of late, more often than not, i do, think many thoughts i've never thought before.

maybe it's thirty that has birthed these new thoughts and feelings in my mind and heart.
which is different and nice because life is very cyclical.  and sometimes life seems very expected.

my mentor likened life to a spiral staircase, a journey in which you are always moving upwards, but often returning to similar events, issues, worries, etc.  so when brand new experiences, thoughts, or even worries creep in and are presented to you, it is often a 'woah' moment in which you stop and think to yourself,  i've never been here before.

and that is what has been plaguing my thoughts for the last week.  a new thought.  a completely unexpected wondering.  it's one very much akin to thoughts thought of before, but it's phrasing gives it a new spin, that caused me to see things and myself in a very different light.


"you underestimate yourself," he said.

i was silent.  i've never thought that before.  i've never been told that before.  yes, i've struggled with ideas similar to that, but i've never seen it in the light of underestimation.

we drove in the dark attempting to find the quickest way home.  i think we were both done with each other.  for some unknown reason, and yet it was clear to both of us. 

and his words, they stung. 

i wanted to ask, whatever do you mean?  but i didn't have to.  he pressed on and told me. 

he recounted the ways the entire evening, the last three weeks, perhaps my whole life, the ways in which i underestimate myself.  i was then thankful for the darkness of the car as the tears crept their way out, burning and then falling ever so quickly down to my lap.

"hmmm," was all i could vocalize.

he then took to messing with the air conditioning as i sped faster home.  i wanted him gone, i wanted to be away.  i never wanted to see him again.  and i probably won't.  and shouldn't that relax my mind and heart?

but it doesn't.  his words are still an ever present sting.

it's funny how words do that.  i remember last december grasping so tightly to another man's words and the life they spoke into me.  how they had carried me so far with hope and comfort.  and while they don't hold the same power they once did, they remain scripted on my heart, albeit one man's opinion, it didn't make it less worthy of meaning.

and while this most recent man's words did not destroy me, they certainly made me think.  this three date wonder's words.  the unlikeliest of sources with perhaps a great deal of wisdom and insight into me.

you see, he wasn't wrong.  i do underestimate myself.  i view myself as extremely limited and i don't know why.  and the limitations are quite strange and oppressive.  i let this underestimation dictate how i believe others must view me.

i don't see myself being or becoming or able or appreciated.  it often goes unnoticed until someone points it out.  and it's almost okay if your mentor, or one of your best girlfriends, or even your mom points it out, because they are in your core and they see and know.  but when he says it, this man on the outside of things, this man who i struggle to let in says it...i immediately think, no, you have not earned this.

and suddenly i am not underestimating myself.  i am seeing myself for who i am.  for who i can be and become.  and he, well he squashed it, and i let him.

and it feels like two steps back from where you thought you were, and that is discouraging.  

but two steps back means you have the space to move forward, if you are willing to fight.

and it is the fight that ensues.  a fight sometimes i think is long over, only i am left to find a new enemy pops up and suddenly i am in the thick of the battle again.