no more shame, no more fear, no more dread
I walked through the hallway to a room of only mirrors
Reflecting me in bondage, so I watched myself get freer
I let my horns grow longer; I observed my skin get redder
My soul became a hammer; I started to feel better
My hatred turned to pity; my resentment blossomed flowers
My bitter tasted candy; my misery was power
The truth in me grew brighter—my nature and my nurture
No more shame, no more fear, no more dread!
I am, I am, I am, I am the truth
I had a 1-1 meeting with my manager, the last one until my contract is up, last Thursday. I've been reflecting since then cuz like, it's not the first time but she had so much good to say about my work in the past 2 and a half years. And I just am coming to terms I guess, with the fact that I could have done a lot less and gotten away with it. Which is exactly what she said lol, she said I could've done like 10% of what I did. And that she didn't even know how I did it, and I've become basically an expert in doing the thing I've been doing. And I'm like ... ... huh. Maybe it just took her saying that. She was gone for a year and I thought I would be out of there before she came back so when I got extended I also got very anxious that when she saw my work, I wouldn't have done enough or I would have done everything completely wrong and. In one sense I think this is a rational fear because I basically taught myself how to do my job but this is also really a recurring theme in my life and it has me like. I dunno. Why am I like this. Lol.
I actually don't know like, I can't really point to any specific reason why I'm deathly afraid of making mistakes. I've always been a huge perfectionist and I've been told I'm detail-oriented many times. I know I'm slower at stuff because of that. In school even going back to being like 9 or 10 I have this core memory of noticing how other kids had written pages before I could even finish one or two sentences and this got picked up on in every parents' evening. But anyway.
I was expressing some thoughts about this on a voice note to Sam yesterday and it didn't record because the mic wasn't connected but I wish I remembered half of what I said. Anyway, it tied into this wedding stationery I'm doing for my sister and it's just this same thing over and over in my life lol. It boiled down to like, I don't know if it's my black-and-white autism brain but in my head I can't just be good at something, I have to do something to the point where I can't see anything that I could change to make it better before I can say it's good enough and leave it alone.
Something else I said was about how also, when I do get told I'm good at something, I always feel almost like a responsibility then, to pursue it --- this is why I went to art school and never tried to get good at anything else lmao. I do think that like. This is something else that struck me today. Back in school, college, university -- I clung to being good at what I did because it was the only positive signal I got from other people. Nowadays I'm a little better at integrating myself but back then I didn't have a clue how to talk to people and I was always the freak who didn't speak to anyone and NOT in a cool way, I wasn't skinny or attractive, and so my only redeeming feature in my head was being good at something; good enough that people had some kind of respect for me. I really only just remembered how true that was for me once, and probably still is to a lesser degree. Even when I worked in catering people could see that I was good at my job. And I feel like all of this has put me in a position where I feel like I just have to give it 110% all the time.
So it's like --- my ability to be good at my job is really really tied to my self worth. And this is something I've really been getting to grips with lately, that my self worth really is so wrapped up in other people and has had nothing to do with me and the person that I am and my own feelings. I've been saying this I think, in recent entries, or just talking, but anyway.
This song's been making me kinda emotional lol something about Becoming Myself and letting go of. So many things.
My friend V has been writing down the story of her whole life in a notebook and I'm like. I wanna do that lol. I also want to get therapy. I dunno.
In other news... thinking about switching from neocities to nekoweb lol. I think it's better vibes there, can upload more file formats without being a paid member, I think the storage capacity is better, and I've heard something about the neocities creator being pro-AI but I haven't looked into that. The first few reasons were enough. I just have to deal with transferring everything over and hopefully it's straightforward but it probably won't be lmao.
And, after I'm done beading I kind of want to get into some textile stuff, I'm not sure what exactly.
I'm moving a lot of stuff around but in chunks every day or every other day.
Current mood: thoughtful
Currently reading: ...
Song of the day:
Small Red Boy - AJJ