Is There A Possibility Of More For Me?

The truth is that I always see myself as the “bad guy.” I am inherently evil, a terrible and wicked being. Some days I fight the urge to punch my face as I gaze into the mirror, others I avoid even peering into the reflective glass at all. I hate how I look, how I sound, how I smell. I wish that I could escape myself, I wish that I could simply cease to exist in the beautiful world…I wish that I could die.

I easily brush off compliments, I avoid anything or anyone that attempts to give me praise. There’s always another explanation you see, always a better reason for the good because it’s not me. At work, I tell everyone it’s the students that make the music sound so good. At home I know it’s my husband’s doing that is the reason for all that we have and are. My daughters are smart and creative because of their fancy childcare. My writing is only publishable because of wonderful editors or people with poor taste in what makes valued reading material. All of my successes are because of someone else, not me.

You see, I will always be the crazy mess, the explosive Borderline. Forever hideous, forever clumsy, forever indecisive and dumb. I’ll never be of value, nobody ever votes me as their number one. Endless failures in my past and countless more yet to come. Before my next blunder, you might want to run.

I guess there’s a possibility though, a small chance that I am wrong. Perhaps what I’ve always seen is a skewed version of the truth, something I’ve only imagined inside my own mind. Is it possible that I’m not the monster that I see, the villain I’ve always believed myself to be? Is there potential for there to be light within the darkness, beauty hiding in the shadows? I’ve spent decades believing that I am nothing; for years I was reminded that I was nothing more than scum. I’ve always seen myself as being marked, as bearing my own form of the scarlet letter. And every time I made a mistake or lost another friend, there was simply another cut added, a new notch etched into my skin to remind me what a horrible beast I am, incapable of anything real and sustainable.

Is it possible that there’s really nothing wrong with me, or anyone for that matter? Could the reality be that everything is left to chance, and possibly mine will someday turn around? Perhaps I am more than what I see, more than the potential I believe that I possess. There’s always a possibility… possibly even for me.