I Rock

The comments and questions that have followed my posts that touch on sexual abuse have made me reflect on the state of Me.

There is almost nothing I hate worse than being misunderstood; the most heated arguments between My Man and me happen when I think he's not "gotten me" and I dig in my heals to explain and explain again in an effort to make him see The Light (I'm right!) , which of course is annoying, from his point of view.

Hate me for something I am or have done, and I can take it. But form an opinion of me because you think I am something I'm not or have done something I haven't and it will drive me crazy. Simply and innocently misunderstand me and I will suffer from a maniacal urge to better explain myself.

Then why on earth do you blog?

I resisted the immediate impulse to reply in depth to the various queries ...

What would I post in the future?

... and decided I would have to write something about the current me, even though that's the end of the story, so that I could put your minds at rest and you could read future posts about the guilt ridden little girl or the teenager struggling with the aftermath of something she didn't remember, free from worry about today's me.

That was a mouthful of a sentence.

I began to think about what I'd write to put your minds at ease, a thought process that demanded a greater degree of pro-active self-examination than I normally practice. The result: a delightful, possibly corny, revelation.

I'm happy!

Happy is not the total sum of the revelation. I have always been a happy, joke-making sort of person. My jolly demeanour, however, has been blemished over the years by periods self doubt and loathing. Such periods have recurred with enough frequency that I had resigned myself to accepting myself as a bit off-balance. My self-definition was marked by contradictions: confident with low self-esteem; intelligent, bright, funny, yet awkward, stupid, and worthless. I had learnt to manage these contradictions; I had accepted myself.

That's just me.

As I picked over myself to present my current self to you I discovered that I am not just happy. I am balanced and confident and exceedingly sane. That might sound boring to some, but I have had my share of the alternative.

Thank you for making me look longer and think deeper about myself. If you hadn’t, I might not have realized just how true the following is: No need to worry about me; I fucking rock.