I'm a Precious Stone: Rare, Beautiful and Durable

Being “real” isn’t something that happens overnight. It doesn’t click on a casual afternoon and stick with us for the rest of our lives without struggle. We have to put in real work and effort to keep it there, and we have to keep alert that it is not lost along the journey.

It’s especially daunting how easily it can be lost too, if we let it be.

Every single day, each one of us has to take on a brand new 24 hours when we swear that we barely, barely got through the last one. The sun will be too bright some days. On others, the snow will pile up so thick we can’t get out our front door. Rain may relax us when it drums against our window sill, but thunder and lightning might keep us up on that very same night. We live in a crazy, unpredictable world, no matter how good we are at organizing it. We learn the hard way that there is some pain that we have to carry all by ourselves, and we learn even better that there are some things that simply can’t be prevented.

I’m young. I’m an adult, but a super baby one at that, and I can easily say that there are millions of things I haven’t experienced yet, so much that somebody could tell me I have no idea what I’m talking about. Honestly, maybe I don’t, to an extent.

Yes, I have loving parents, I had a wonderful childhood, and they’re kind enough to extend their hands to me while I chase after my dreams and figure out who the heck I am. The tragic backstories in movies and novels made up to make a character interesting don't have anything to do with me, not even a little bit. I’d call myself a fortunate person with a lovely, blessed life without a hesitation or a stutter.

Still, that doesn’t make the hardship I have faced any less valid. We live in an imperfect world, so there’s bound to be something that comes our way. I know what it’s like for every person in my near surroundings to look at me with disappointment, belittlement, and as a failure solely because I decided their definition of success wasn’t mine. I know what it’s like to be an outcast, to struggle to fit in and to have friends that don’t have the same values as me. I know what it’s like to be stood up, to be avoided, and to be cast aside. I’ve hated my reflection, my body, my face, and I’ve looked in the mirror wishing to be someone else countless times. That sort of life affects the better of us. I’m certainly not alone.

And that’s okay. Oh my, it’s so okay, I cannot stress that enough. It’s okay to have those moments where we can hardly get out of bed if we’re able to at all. It’s okay to pull up Instagram, drowning in our own laziness and shame to stalk people who we find to be prettier, smarter or funnier than we are. It’s okay to admire the ones with branded clothing and luxury houses, wishing that someday we could be them and to roll our eyes at our worn-down rip-off t-shirts we can’t afford to replace. We’re allowed to feel lonely, to feel stupid, weak, naive and behind in life. We’ll experience times when we’re downhearted over trying to please people who won’t be pleased, who would take everything we do for granted or who are idiots that think they have the right to mold us into their version of splendid and blissful.

We might be selfish, ourselves, sometimes. Maybe we want things that we can’t have, and we spend too much of our days complaining about the injustices of life. Maybe we’re demanding toward the people we come across when we aren’t in any way above them, or maybe we have a habit of exaggerating things to make conversation fully about us, or maybe we’re genuinely pessimistic about ourselves and we can’t help but to talk about how everything will fall apart. Maybe we’re jealous about the popular girl who has the guy we wish we had, or a singing voice that could make a sold-out stadium be moved to tears. Maybe we hate people for no reason, or more likely, look only at the bad and irritating in them instead of the good.

Nobody’s perfect. We’re each heartbroken. Heartbroken in the sense that we don’t know how to be, how to exist, and we don’t know what to do with ourselves. We’re, in some aspect or another, scrambling to figure that out for the entirety of our lives.

The important thing to remember is that it is possible to rise above it all and put worth on ourselves. We can and will learn that we don’t have to waste our breath on anyone who doesn’t deserve our time, and that we don’t have to care about what other people think. We can demand to be respected because we deserve it. We can find love and experience our own kind of cloud nine. We can figure out to be more than just the name we were given, and add an identity to it that we’re proud to have. We can find joy in being us and not somebody else.

Trust me. I was probably one of the weakest people the earth spun for, but I did it. I learned what life is actually about, or better said, I learned what my life is about. I am order and chaos, good and evil, life and death. I am the girl who rocks a bedhead for four days straight, and I'm also the girl who glamours up in silver earrings, bracelets and a bold red lipstick to feel beautiful to myself, even if that means I’ll only wear it to take out the trash. I’m a woman who finishes an entire 9 season sitcom in three days, writes a lot of thank you cards because I'm so easily blown away by the little things, who forgets to do the dishes, makes a fool of herself to see people laugh, and who just lives through whatever needs be.

So what exactly is my true self? It’s being satisfied, impressed and happy when I feel life is a flower garden, a blue sky, or a full-moon and I truly feel alive, but bringing that same satisfaction on another day, when I manage to survive and know that that’s the very most that I can do.

And I’m shining, alright.