The biggest lesson I’m learning this week is about forgiveness. Not forgiving others, however. I’m learning that in order to go through life mentally peaceful and to be successful I have to forgive myself for some of my actions and some of my feelings. I have always held myself to a very high standard. I have always tried to improve myself and be the best version of myself that I can be. In this quest, there has been (as there should be) many speedbumps. When those speed bumps arise, I get mad myself sometimes.

I’m majoring in government and history at Bowdoin. Here on my exchange I have ventured into areas outside of this because I thought it would be interesting to challenge myself outside of my discipline. We got our research paper marks for sociology (very different than gov or history) back a couple days ago and I wasn’t exactly happy with it. My grades won’t be counted in my GPA back home, I just have to pass the class. I am in no danger of not accomplishing that, I just had a very high standard for myself regarding this essay because I put some much time and effort into it.

Last week I went out with a group of friends and got slightly intoxicated (#college). Part of it was because of a boy (whoop, there it is). I’ve never really needed liquid courage to talk to anyone. My thought process is that if I feel like I need liquid courage to talk to them they probably are not as important to me as I think they are because if someone is really that important to me, I wouldn’t want to approach them with a slightly clouded mind. I know that you may disagree, Stranger, but that’s how my mind works. Anyway, that happened. What upset me, however, is that even in my slightly clouded judgement I was still too nervous to approach said boy. Odds are, I will never see him again (although he is on exchange and he does go tot the same school as one of my high school friends so you never know…). He himself doesn’t matter though. It’s the idea that since I’ve been in Australia I haven’t done anything with guys. No hookups, no kisses, nothing. I was mostly okay with that aspect – didn’t mean I wasn’t upset about boys being dickheads and not approaching but that you can read about in another post – until my friend (who is also on exchange) said that it was slightly weird that I hadn’t. I drank more than I planned because I felt it was the only way to accomplish this goal that I apparently needed to accomplish. Good thing my mind has so many walls and guards up that it would take me probably being pretty close to black out drunk (which thankfully I was not near) to willingly do something I normally wouldn’t (score one for the mind #inception).

I just don’t do hookups. I just can’t do them. I’m an emotional person who gets attached pretty quickly. The one time I made out with a person I just met (#21stbirthday) was when I wasn’t in the right frame of mind. I had gotten my heart broken, my parents’ divorce was heating up and I was just feeling really sad about life in general. Like I’ve said, I’m at a good mental state and I am mentally at peace right now so I don’t want to just go hookup for the sake of it. I would welcome coffee dates and the like but that pure physical “relationship” thing isn’t something I’m particularly comfortable with.

I am not perfect and I have to accept that. That is basically what I’m trying to say here. I have to stop beating myself up about not doing what I consider to be well. My professor explained over and over that everyone did well considering the complexity of the assignment and that we shouldn’t beat ourselves up at all because of the numerical value we see (whoa, is this what science kids feel on the regular??? #mindblown). In all actuality, I fared better than a lot of my classmates. I just have to get better at understanding that not everything is going to go according to plan and that I should give myself more credit sometimes or I will never be happy.

With the other thing, I learned to dial it back on the comparisons and questioning myself. So I don’t want to kiss a stranger in a sweaty nightclub with 100 pairs of eyes on me. That doesn’t make me weird. I am not any less of a woman, exchange student or college student because of that.

In regards to a previous post where I was upset, either about boys or my feelings of insecurity, I’m learning that it’s ok to have those feelings as well. I just can’t let them become my identity or to affect my everyday life, but it’s ok to have them. They don’t make me weak; they don’t make my journey of self love any less relevant or important. If anything, the changing ways in which I deal with those emotions as they come indicate how far I have come on my journey.

Stranger, we are strong, we are intelligent, we are beautiful. I’m learning that wanting to be a better person is not crazy nor is it something I will give up doing anytime soon. I have to give myself some more breathing room though.

Peace,

-M

p.s. I have tumblr now. Crazy, I know. m-tumble is the name. It’s my new shiny toy so I’m on there daily, unlike here.