Have You Ever Wondered?

When I was little , I loved to read.  It was my escape from my reality.  My favorite books to read at times were the ones where you could rewrite your steps and pick different paths.  I wanted the best for my characters.  I wanted them to have great memories and great lives.  

I wonder what life would be like if we could go back to page 5 and pick B instead of A.  Or if life were like playing the popular board game where you pick a career or collage and move around the board making choices.  Win or lose, you can always play again and make different choices.  

I have decided to stop wondering what it would be if I’d picked a different choice and start making them.  I am stepping out of my box and going to see what my anxieties have been keeping me from.  I want to spread my wings and fly like I have always dreamed I could.  

Ok, back to reality!  I really do want to fly and step out of these chains of anxiety that bind me.  But the problem is what do I do?  See Anxiety has always held me back.  I would try something out long enough to learn it a little but never master anything.  Adversity would always meet me before I could excel in anything.  There was always someone there to point out that I couldn’t or shouldn’t do what I was setting out to do.  I wasn’t good enough, fast enough, pretty enough, thin enough.  I couldn’t sing well enough, act well enough, paint or draw well enough.  I was good alright, but never good enough.  

There was always someone better that I would let do it.  There were even things I couldn’t do just because I was a girl.  Other things I was expected to do for the same reasons.  Girls can’t learn to build things, they need to learn to cook.  Yet, I would sneak and watch every nail, ever cut, every measurement that I possibly could.  I would get lost in the sound of the saw and the smell of saw dust.  

I’m all grown up now and the words still echo in my head.  The words that fuel my anxieties, that trap me inside myself.  How can something with no power be so powerful and imprisoning?  

I love my life and my family.  My goals are to add to this wonderful life some more meaning and achievements to better myself. To free me to be me.