I started this blog with a purpose. Actually more than one purpose but mainly because I wanted to make myself have adventures so that I actually had something to write about that was worth reading.

Worth.
Worth is a word that I struggle with on a daily basis. Google "worth" and oxford dictionary because Oxford sounds fancy and it brings you to Value.

Its the end of the spring semester and recently I made an appointment with my advisor to plan my next semester out. I hate doing it because they always ask you all these questions that you are supposed to know the answers to. As we we're walking to her office she asked me the one question I get the most, and the one get that I hate the most. If you had asked me that question 6 years ago I would've rattled on about being a famous movie director. Two years before that I was still delusional enough to think that I could be an actress, until a boy I barely knew made a cruel remark about my acting in front of a best friend and she laughed along with him. Before that, I was destined for photography. I looked at my feet and the brick pathway suddenly panicked. 10 years ago, the 13 year old that was me could give you a written list of reasons why I would become the best adult you've ever known.


This almost 24 year old's list is flooded with eraser marks and doubt. I've heard this before. From friends and relatives and mom of course.
I believe it 55% of the time too. The other 45% of the time I'm lost in a deep ocean of uneasiness, of crushed dreams and reality. Of over dramatization. I role the phrase around in my mouth tasting its bitter truth. "Lack of Confidence" as if it were a diagnosis. How stupid. Whats more stupid is that I already know whats 'wrong' with me, and I hear the uplifting words of friends like a blaring loudspeaker.
But it's the quiet voice that resonates in the depths of my mind that seeds. Its the frustration that I'm stuck in a cyclical pattern of behavior and I know better than to succumb to it.

I saw a quote on the internet ( of course ) that comes to mind quite frequently.

Don't let comparison, rob you of joy.

There are many things in my life and this world that I feel have robbed me of joy, but have I forgotten that I am fully capable of robbing myself of joy? It's natural to compare yourself to something or another. Too often I forget that there is no standard really. There is no one perfect human being that defines exactly what we should be, do, or look like. There is one type of comparison that will benefit you however.

It is when you compare yourself to someone and they remind you not about everything that's wrong with you or what you don't have, or how much better you are than them but rather, how being yourself all right.  That you're gonna make it, no matter how far behind you are, no matter how many times you've completely messed it all up.

I'm privilged to have a friend like that. I see her atleast once a week, and while she never says it outright I hear "Melissa, you're gonna be alright"

In my world I hear a lot of questions:
"what are you gonna do now?"
"How can you live like that?"
"Where are you going to be?"
"Why haven't you done this?"
"When are you going to be finished?"

A constant reminder that I don't know whats going to happen to me, and I'm afraid to even think about it, I look at her face, the face of my dear friend and for a short moment: