I’ve been on a self-improvement tear for the last few years. This is what the stack of books next to my bed looks like.
But honestly I’ve kind of been on a self-improvement tear my whole adult life (minus college, I was mostly just going with the flow then—well, aside from my obsession with devouring books about how to write). In my mid-to-late twenties it was mostly what the hell do I do for a job, how do I pick a career, how do I manage my money because I knew that working part-time for minimum wage was not an “adult job/career” (note to self: write about that later, because I hate it. It SHOULD be an adult job/career option).
So it’s been a common throughline in my life, but I think it’s been extra intense the last few years. Hence the paying for a coach. I’ve known for the last several years that as I’ve gotten older I’ve sort of clamped down on sharing the parts of me that I know will not be met with only joyful acceptance. The things that might be considered “cringe” or that I’m “too old for” or that might make people think there’s something wrong with me. Which is most of me.
When my little brother died in 2023, I learned a lot about him from various people who knew him in other areas of his life. Things that I think he might have had similar thoughts about. If there was someone who was more tightly locked down when it comes to revealing personal details, it was probably my brother. I don’t think he wanted people to know things about him because if they know things about you, they can hurt you. Or maybe that’s just my feelings about it.
But learning these little details of the life he lived and realizing how much he tried to hide or obscure that I would have been supportive of, that I would have been able to relate to or enjoy with him made me want to try to be more myself. To be unapologetically who I am and enjoy the things I enjoy knowing that nothing I enjoy is dangerous or harmful for others (except in the way that anything can be). If it doesn’t harm others, people should be able to love things even if they’re a bit weird. And people includes me.
I haven’t quite figured out how to do it yet. I might be overthinking it (extremely likely tbh). I always find it easier to talk about the things I enjoy online, which is probably why the vast majority of my friends have been made online. If I end up talking to someone online, odds are we’re both into the same stuff so it’s easy. But in person, they could be a Christian extremist that thinks enjoying fanfic is evil or someone who thinks reading is stupid or I don’t know. It’s just much scarier.
It’s hard to know what is and isn’t okay to share too—I’m not even on TikTok, but I worry about being a TikTok oversharer.
All this to say, I’ve been feeling an almost desperate, frantic need to improve myself the last few years. Figure out how to be more honestly me. Be better at managing people. Learn to work in a totally different work environment. Save more money. Stop being so hard on myself but not stop being so hard on myself that I’m a shitty person. I have to be better so I don’t hurt the people I care about and I can take care of myself and I can start my own business so I can take care of myself.
I think I’ve been trying to cram twenty years of personal growth into the last two and getting anxious and frustrated because it’s not working. But maybe it is working and I’m just so frenetic about it that I can’t even see it. I hope so.
Stepladder Ink 