Sugar and self doubt

I'm 33 years old. I graduated high school when I was 18, that was 15 years ago. I look back on those 15 years for accomplishments that I have achieved. Sadly, I don't see very many. This is a true indication of how I have not been living my life to the fullest. I keep waiting to achieve things until I am perfect enough. As if being perfect has anything to do with how successful one can become. Yet, I have allowed this one thing to consume my life. I have allowed myself to become so focused on becoming "perfect" that I don't have any real passion for life.

My days are filled with sitting around, watching tv, stuffing my face with food and waiting for that miraculous event to come and hit me over the head. It is difficult for me to plan to be away from home for any length of time because I might be gone too long and then where will I be able to binge. I have declined many offers to go to movies, parties, gatherings and such because I didn't want to leave the safety of my house and the solitude of being able to eat alone. If I ate alone I wouldn't be judge. Little did I know that I was being judged all along by those I declined to do things with. These people were confused because they saw a confident girl who enjoys laughing and they couldn't understand why I didn't want to go out and have fun.

The confidence thing has always confused me. I have been told that I appear to be a very confident person. Man, I have been able to pull the wool over a many pair of eyes! I am so very opposite of confident that the word to describe me should be self-conscious. In fact I am so self-conscious I might as well be artificial. At least that's how I feel. It's like fake sugar, it tastes like real sugar, looks like real sugar but is so far away from what real sugar really is that it's amazing.

The artificial me has built up a wall of protection but this last week that wall was broken down. In all honesty, I have tried to build the wall back up but it cannot ever compare to the structure it once was. So...I have left it to lay in it's own crumbles. Instead of Humpty Dumpty not being put together again, my wall of artificial sweetener has not been put back together again. I must say that I miss it. However, I realize how uncomfortable it made me at the same time.

So how do I get from this self-conscious, newly exposed girl to a confident and self assured woman? Will I become this way over time as I experience new adventures? I'm not sure. What I do know is that I'm done waiting to be "perfect" to start living life. Perfect is unattainable. What does perfect even look like? Who cares! I don't want to be perfect anyway. I want to be myself, that includes all of my feelings, all of my flaws and all of my positive attributes as well. I have decided that if someone doesn't like me, as I truly am, then screw 'em. They weren't meant to be my friend anyway. I am no longer going to hide behind a saccharine wall just so someone will like me, just so I can wait around to be able to do something.

This imperfect woman is going to begin living her life, today. I will no longer sit on the side lines watching the game with nachos in my hands. I will instead be the one in the game. To win this game it will take blood, sweat and probably quite a few tears. It is a dream of mine now not to look back at my life and still see an unhappy girl stuck in a wall of perfection constructed out of self doubt but instead to see a confident, self assured, imperfect woman baring it all to the world with a steady line of accomplishments behind her.