Having a broken foot has left me with a lot of time to sit on my butt and as I’m pretty much burnt out on television, I have started thinking. A LOT. I hate judging/being judged but it seems as if it’s almost a “normal” part of life. I’m not just talking about saying to your friend, “OMG! Her shoes are so hideous!” as you are walking down the street. Submitting all of my applications was scary because I knew I was being judged and compared against five hundred (or more) other applicants. I could not figure out why I kept getting so stressed out about these people judging me; it’s not as if I’d even met them before. Then I would feel myself getting angry. I would wonder what gave them the right to even be judging me, and why they got to be on the committee, and I would just wind up judging these people I don’t even know! It was a vicious cycle, but I just couldn’t seem to pull myself out of it.
I spent this past weekend at home, and it was something that was definitely needed. I ended up spending a lot of time with my cousin Mckenzi (right), and time with a two year old is never boring. She is definitely in the “Why?” phase of her life, and is without a doubt questioning everything. At one point I was incredibly frustrated by her constant questioning, mostly because I was out of answers. I turned to my mom and asked, “When is she going to grow out of this?” She answered that she didn’t know, but she hoped that she never did grow out of it. She said that it was wonderful to constantly be questioning things in life.
During my drive home, I was thinking about Kenz and the conversations that we had. Something she just couldn’t seem to wrap her head around was my foot being broken. She kept asking, “But why you break you foot, Annie?” The difference between the questioning minds of a two year old and a twenty one year old is that I can just accept some things as ‘just the way they are.’ Kenz does not accept that answer for anything. It got me thinking, though. Why can’t I accept the things in my life that I cannot change anymore? My applications are in. I’ve done everything that I possibly could (and then some) to get myself ready for this point in my life. Why can’t I just accept that some things are out of my hands? And why can’t I see myself the way that she sees me? She isn’t going to think less of me if I don’t go to graduate school right away. She only gets upset with me if she’s in trouble, but even then I know that she still loves me. Why can’t I be that way about myself? Life would be so much simpler and less stressful.
I can hear her say, “Why, Annie? Why?”
Simply put, I’m a part of the human being club. I make mistakes, lots of them, and I have flaws. But if I can recognize these things about myself, it is the first step in making myself the best me I can be.
