be kaia . . . ?

so, i'll admit it.  i'm lost.

i'm in a place in my life that i've never been before.  i've lost my appetite for life, and i'm starving.

in conversation with my dad last night, he was encouraging me to just "be me".  just be yourself and the rest will follow.  sure, i've heard it before.  plenty of times.  but who is this person that they're talking about?  my dad always says that i've got so much personality and spirit that it's not even funny.

i don't get it.  where is it?  why can't i see it?  i used to be that gregarious girl, so proud of who she was, what she stood for, and where she came from.  and now?  . . .

nobody could ever tell me who to be.  of this, i am sure.  i'm way too hard headed and crazy to listen to what other people tell me.  and when people try to tell me who they think i am, i usually don't believe what they're saying anyway.  i've had this complex since i was 15:  the "i'm not good enough" complex.  i'm not good enough to find a husband, i'm not good enough to graduate from college and get a job, i'm not good enough to afford a nice, expensive dress.  i'm not good enough to take a damn compliment.  please excuse my french, really i apologize, but what the shit is wrong with me?

who taught me that i don't deserve anything good?  who decided that i wasn't good enough to deserve the things that i believe that every other woman in my life deserves?  when did i deem myself unworthy of a happy life?

i think looking back on my life thus far, there have been many moments that i've been torn down so low to believe that i don't deserve anything.  this isn't to say that i've had such a crappy life and that i deserve the a pity party all around.  because i know that that isn't what i want.  but, my question is, where did that zest for life go?  where did that little girl with the white blonde hair who used to play games underneath the oak trees go?

i know that as you grow up, you lose some of your childish inhibition, of course.  you figure that you have to actually grow up a little and do all of those mundane grown up tasks.  you lose some of that spunk and spirit.  the thing is, though, up until now, this point, i never lost it.  and that was something that i loved about myself.  the terms "kaia" and "spitfire" were commonly used in the same sentence.  now, i feel like the terms "kaia" and "anxious" work in better conjunction.

i can't pinpoint exactly what it is.  exactly what i lost and can't find, or why am i so adamant about searching for it.  i really can't.  all i know is that if i don't get back on the right track soon, my senior year or college, now looming on the horizon, is going to be very, very miserable.  and being miserable makes you tired.  and being tired makes you crabby.  none of which i want to be during my last year as a college student. 

so, every night i fall asleep with my mind going a mile a minute.  if you don't believe me, think of it this way.  each night as i'm falling asleep, i have a movie reel going in my head that is traveling at about 140 miles per hour.  things go through this movie reel that i should have done that day, or a particular time when something happened a mistake i've made, something i've done. . .it just never stops.  so last night, i asked God to come into my mind and slow it down.  i asked God to come in to my mind and into my heart and calm me down.

i'm not kidding you--i was begging.  i could feel it in the tips of my toes.  at this time when i feel so lost, there is one thing that i am sure that i need.  so positive.  and that's God.  i am unsure of pretty much everything else in my life.  but i'm sure that i'm a baptized, child of God.

i know who's i am.

i'm going to be just fine.

fight the good fight,

+kaia