All The Things I Never Was

Abstract title, I know. Don't worry. We'll get there. But the first step to getting anywhere is choosing where to start, and I've chosen to tell you this story about all the things I never was by starting with the things I've always been.

Stubborn. Submissive. Short-tempered. Cautious. And more than anything, quiet. I've always been quiet. To be honest, I wish I could tell you why. It'd be nice if I could give you a reason or some sort of explanation as to why I am the way I am, but I can't. I don't know if it's even possible, much less how I'd go about it.

But none of that matters. My point is, my being quiet has played an indescribable role in creating the 20-year-old me who's sitting here writing this all out at this very moment. Sometimes in the best ways and other times, the worst. But regardless, you ought to know a little bit about why.

I was 13 the first time I felt my self-confidence fall drastically. I had invited a friend over to spend the night and after sitting there for 3+ hours with her being on her phone, I began to feel like she couldn't have cared less if I was there or not.

"Maybe I'm not worth spending time with," I thought to myself. "Maybe she really doesn't care."

And to many of you that probably sounds crazy, because you're probably thinking I should've known that the awful feeling I was experiencing was beyond my control and not at all my fault. I should've let it go, right? I shouldn't have cared so much. I shouldn't have let it bother me. I should've been a kid, I shouldn't have let it hurt me... but it did.

At 13 years old, standing at the entrance to my teenage years, I was already doubting my worth because of how someone else was treating me- and it got worse.

Flash forward a year, and the same friend is sleeping over again. I'm making up her bed while she's on FaceTime with the guy she likes. She looks at him and smiles, then flips the camera so he's looking at me instead of at her.

"Who's prettier?" she asks him, and pain didn't waste a single second shooting right to my already-insecure heart.

"You," he tells her. "Easy."

Knots tied themselves in my stomach as a result of frustration, insecurity, and the anger I suddenly had no choice but to feel. I faked feeling sick so my parents would send her home. I never told them what really happened. This is my first time telling this story to anyone. This is the first time this story has gone anywhere other than in circles inside my head.

I need you to know that this is probably the hardest thing for me to be honest with you about. It is requiring an insane amount of mental strength just to sit here and write this out because in the 7 years that the pain I felt that night has had to water down, it still hasn't disappeared completely. That isn't the kind of thing you can just get over, or un-hear, and I still struggle with self-confidence every day because of it and because of similar things that have happened since. This story is what prompted me to begin my #selflovejourney.

If you ever wonder why I seem to lack confidence or why I'm so quiet, it's because I never was brave enough to tell this story. Until now. Now I'm brave because I have no choice. I'm brave because through the process of growing up and becoming myself, I've realized the world takes advantage of people who are afraid.

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My senior year of high school started with my boyfriend of a year and four months breaking up with me over text. Again, you probably don't think that's too big a deal. You probably think I'm being too dramatic in the way that I write about it, too, and I'm almost positive you think I'm out of my mind for being so stuck on it to this day that I'm writing about it as a junior in college. But it's important for you to understand that during my high school years, I may as well have been made of glass.

The day he dumped me was probably the worst day of my high school career because he was the first person I'd really allowed myself to be emotionally close to. He was who I'd told everything to, and who'd tell me good morning each day. He was the one I'd been proud to bring home to my parents, he was the first boy I'd ever cried in front of, and he was the one who didn't just tell me I was beautiful all the time, but who made me genuinely feel like it was true.

He left my life faster than he came into it, and taught me what heartbreak was. That much doesn't bother me at all anymore. I've been over it for a long time- but it plays a significant role in this story because at the time that it happened, it really made me feel like I didn't matter enough to hold onto. It felt like people were slowly pushing me out of their lives, and it also felt like I was the only one who was hurt. As I told you, the boy broke up with me by text. He sent me a long message one Friday afternoon just as my school day was ending. I responded, and then I never heard anything back. No closure. No call. No message to ask how I felt or what I was doing. Nothing. I felt like I was someone who anyone could just up and walk away from at any given moment. I'd send texts to people and I would see that they'd read them, and I wouldn't get responses. I'd call friends who I knew always had their phones in their hands and never get answered. I'd ask people if they wanted to do something and they'd say no, then post on social networks about being bored and wanting company. The more that these things happened, the more I began feeling like I was easy to ignore.

I never was strong enough to think that maybe these things were happening because people didn't see what I was worth. I always assumed it was because I wasn't worth enough to them- and that continued to do damage to my mental health from then on.

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If you've followed my blogs and my writing for long enough, you'll remember reading about my senior prom. The mess that it was, the tears that went into it, the luck I had, the last minute dress, the everything. So I'll spare you the details- but for those of you who are new here, the gist is still worth sharing.

I didn't have a date to my senior prom like everyone else did. I say everyone- I mean my entire friend group. All of them. Even the ones who weren't dating anyone had gotten asked, leaving me alone.. again.

One day my mom came into my room to find me on my bed, crying, and didn't leave until I agreed to tell her what was going on.

"Everyone has a date to prom," I told her. "I don't."

"There's still time," she told me.

"No," I said. "There's a little over a week. I don't even have time to get a dress, nobody's going to ask me."

This is where the lack of confidence creeps in again. In my four years of high school, and with twelve school dances, I had never been asked to one. Year after year, dance after dance, I watched as my friends were asked and promposal posters were displayed. I even reported on several of them for the school yearbook, thinking that one day I would be getting to be on the opposite side of those interviews.

"Someone will ask you!" people would tell me. "How could they not?" and up until my senior year, I was just as optimistic. But by the week prior to my senior prom, I knew it wasn't going to happen and that's when it really hit me hard. I knew I was out of time.

I cried a lot that week. I felt a lot. But then something happened.

I found a cheap dress at the mall, tried it on and loved it. "I'm going," I told my mom as I stepped out of the dressing room. "I have to."

And I did exactly that. I went alone, and I am not lying when I tell you I had a better prom night than I probably would've had I brought a date. I went to prom alone, came home at 1 a.m., ate an ice cream sandwich, pulled bobby pins out of my hair for an hour and then sat down to blog the WHOLE story.

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I never was asked to a school dance. In 4 years and 12 dances, I was never asked. 

That said, I did find the silver lining.

Going to my senior prom alone, being the only girl to do that and being the only one to proudly announce it- taught me so much about feminism, independence and the value of experience.

I didn't come home that night sad that I hadn't gone with a guy. I came home grateful that I'd been able to experience senior prom differently than everyone else. I came home feeling lucky that I'd posted pictures of myself and shared parts of my story and been supported the entire time.

If you take nothing else from this portion of this post, know this:

Just go. If there's something you want to experience, just go. Don't wait for someone to ask you. Don't worry about needing other people to do it with. Don't feel like you have to do it like everybody else does. Just do it. Just go. $400 dress or $20 dress. Date or no date. Rain or shine. Reason or no reason. Just make the decision to give yourself that opportunity. Just. Go.

 I never was aware of how much power there is in simply doing things. I never knew how important it is for the soul to experience things for the hell of experiencing them... until that night. And I have to share that with you because I want you to know it sooner than I did- and now is better than never.

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Oh, and there were conferences, too.

Elementary school was the easiest thing I'd ever done (academically) and because I was quiet, did all my homework, and didn't give the teachers any hell, I always came home with a good report card.

So as you can imagine, adjusting to middle school was hard for a lot of reasons. I felt academically inferior for the first time, I struggled socially because I wasn't part of a clique or particularly great at anything, and my grades started slipping due to my complete lack of confidence.

At parent-teacher conferences, when my parents realized I was making C's in classes I had always (up to then) been good at, they were very anxious.

"She's very quiet," my teachers would tell them. "We can't help if we don't know that she's not understanding something."

But as a result of having a low level of self-confidence in every aspect of my life at the time, asking for help with anything was terrifying. I was scared of looking stupid, and I allowed that to bring me down so much that at one point, I was dancing on the line between passing and failing. Which again, as you can imagine, didn't do me any favors.

Then one day in the middle of my English class my freshman year of college, I got called out for talking when I wasn't supposed to be. I was 18, and for the first time in my life I was getting in trouble for something I'd been encouraged to do my entire life.

I considered that a victory. Not because I probably offended the professor by not paying attention during her lecture, but because I had finally broken the barrier between myself and the voice in my head.

I never was confident in myself until that day, and I've never looked back.

Back as a senior in high school, before I ever even got to college, I spent most of my days dreading the next ones. I started absolutely hating school. My senior year is when I really started coming to the realization that I was worlds of different from everyone else inside those walls, and I started struggling a lot with depression and social anxiety because of it.

I picked up a copy of Crime and Punishment for an English class assignment about halfway through that year, and read it in two days. I had listened to my teachers and classmates and even my own mother tell me how much I would HATE the book seeing as it was a 600+ page Russian novel, and I hadn't listened because I knew even before I picked it up that they were all wrong.

That book wasn't just a story on pages. That book was not just another class assignment. That book became my escape, my hobby, my passion, and my entire life for two days. As it turns out, opening a book and reading is an excellent way to not talk to people while not seeming "too shy" or "too quiet."

Opening a book is a great way to escape your own world for a while and focus on ink in pages rather than how angry you are about how ignorant other people can often be.

So when that book was over, I picked up several more. From then on, I was always reading at school. If I wasn't busy with classroom tasks, my nose was buried in a book. I began pouring every ounce of my emotional energy into getting invested in stories other than my own- and people began to notice that.

"What book are you reading today, Miss Tobias?" my government teacher asked one day, half-curious and half mocking the fact that I really did bring a different book with me almost every day.

I'd show her each one, tell her the basic plot, and we'd talk for a minute or two before the other students came flooding in.

That may seem insignificant to you, but that became my peace. Reading books and putting all of my effort into my academic performance became my favorite distraction from everything dangerous going on in my head. My mental health began improving along with my grades, and I've been dedicated primarily to my studies ever since.

While all my friends and everyone my age prefers weekends and time off, I prefer school. That part usually prompts people to tease me about how nerdy I am- but school saved me. Book reports, essays, research papers... it all saved me from myself.

I was always serious about school, but I never was sure why. I never knew how important it would become until I was sitting with a counselor who had a poster on her wall that said "read more, worry less."

If you find me buried deep in a book or with ink stains on my face from falling asleep on my notes, now you'll know why too.

As I've ventured my way through the awkwardness of growing up and becoming who I really am, I've been lucky enough to have incredible people by my side and I want you to know that if you're reading this right now, you are one of them. If you've read anything I've ever written, if you've asked about it, if you've ever asked me how I am, if you've ever tried to initiate conversation with me, if you've ever even been kind enough to allow me into your life... thank you. Sincerely, powerfully, intimately and infinitely.

For better or for worse, I've been the clay and you've been the sculptor. Through the awful and through the awesome, your tender hearts and gentle hands have molded me into the woman sitting here tonight. You took a chance on a girl who was a blank canvas and you gave me color. You gave me substance. You've turned me into art and more importantly, you've made me feel like it.

"All the things I never was" have become all the things I am now. Braver, louder, more confident, stronger, happier, and more at peace.

Thank you for the years you've let me share my stories and my secrets with the world. Thank you for letting me be vulnerable. Thank you for lifting me up. Thank you for being the reasons I've cried, smiled, felt weak, grown stronger, spoken up, found purpose, and become myself.

You've buried all the things I never was underneath the solid ground I walk on now- and given me new life. 

Thank you. 

I love you. 

Goodnight. xox