Who am I?
It's not exactly a question I ask myself, I mean- why would I even want to know who I am, I already know what I like and how I like it, why bother with any more than that?
I've already sat staring at this blank word doc for half an hour so that must mean I have no idea who I actually am.
We just finished watching 'The Breakfast club' as a class so now my mentor teacher seems to thinks it's a good idea to get a bunch of restless Year 9's to write about who we all think we are, half of them are probably going to copy what the people in the movie wrote and I guess I could just say I'm a Student but I don't think that would get me any marks at all and I kind of want to get into Uni so I'm actually going to try.
I don't know if it's a bad thing that I don't know who I am, maybe it is, maybe it isn't, maybe it doesn't matter at all and your just asking us because you have no idea what to do for this lesson. But I'll tell you one thing, if I went out to a shopping mall or something, went up to some random person like right now and asked them something like 'Who are you?' I bet you that they'll probably sprout some kind bullshit like what their name is or who I might know them through, I doubt even if I explain the question properly that they'd know who they are in the way that I'm actually asking them to answer.
I guess that's why you're asking me though, maybe it's to prepare me for the future when someone asks me who I am and doesn't just want me to tell them my name, I don't know who would ever ask me that, maybe a future friend or boyfriend / girlfriend who has horrible trust issues and wants me to write my life story down so they can scan it and see if it's true, heh, well, anyway I better get on with it since the lessons already half done.
Want to come along for the ride??
Hi. I'm Maddie, I'm thirteen years old, in Year 9 and I live in a town in Australia, Victoria, that consists of just over one thousand three hundred people, when people ask me where I live half the time I just tell them where I live near rather then where I actually live because the place isn't very well known by people outside of the general area. I also take a one hour bus ride every day to get to school.
I, personally, find that I usually end up defining myself by what other people think of me rather than the things I like / do. From my need to be nice to everyone even if I don't really feel / need to be nice to the urge to smother everyone up in a thick warm blanket and protect them from the harsh realities of the world that I had to face much to young, I sometimes even feel the need to protect them from themselves, I've found that what people think of me has and has always had a covertly large impact on my life.
If I'm going to be honest then I might as well pour myself into this paper, please don't judge it to harshly.
I think I'm a bit of a pushover really, because if someone asks me to do something I do it, even if I don't want to do it I do it anyway – especially if it will make someone happy – like if someone asked me right now to do something for them, me being me I'd probably have just said sure and do it for them because I wanted them to like me more, it's a bit of a sad reality really, spending all day every day waiting for a chance to do something that half the time I don't really want to do anyway.
I read something somewhere about pushovers basically being the same as people pleasers, 'Being a pushover is like being nice purely for the sake of having a reputation for being nice (i.e. being a people-pleaser) – with complete disregard for what is actually appropriate, proportionate, and fair.' I don't really know about the last part but the rest of it pretty much sums me up to the T, it's kind of idiotic really, I am so utterly, disgustingly predictable that most of the time people ask me to do something for them before asking anyone else because they know I will do it.
I'm a bit surprised that I don't have trust issues really. I've researched trust issues before for a past essay and it said in several articles that trust issues usually stem from past betrayals, low self-esteem and gaslighting, which I have been exposed to a lot over the years from family and old friends alike and despite that I still trust people way to easily, I mean, I fall into friendships with the regularity of a pig falling and wallowing in mud and most of the time those friendships end up being ones I can imagine will stay for a while. There were a couple of times that my intuition has been faulty though, considering the fact that more then a couple of people I considered to be lifelong friends apparently had ended up plotting to leave me months before they eventually did while I sat blissfully unaware thinking that we'd be friends forever and ever.
My friends don't like me as much as I like them at least that's what I think, what I mean to say is that you know when your in p.e and you have to get into pairs but your friend group has one extra person, yeah? Well, the thing is I'm always that extra person, the one left behind and only picked when their preferred person is away. I'm the second thought, if I suddenly stopped hanging out with them all at recess or lunch, I bet only one or two of them would give it a thought, but if a different one of them suddenly stopped hanging out they would all be in a panic, chasing them around the school, trying to fix what they did wrong and apologizing profusely even if they did nothing.
It would be nice being someone's first choice. I don't even think I'm my boyfriends first choice, not that I'm surprised, we've only been dating for a week and only known each other for a year, his friends would be his first choice probably.
I don't think there was an event or anything big that happened in my life that shaped me into being the person I am today, I think if I had to choose an analogy to describe it, I would pick that it was more like a rock in a streambed getting slowly worn away until the water level sank, and it was left alone in its end shape, whether that be an oval or a square or some other squiggly shape that we don't even have a name for yet, or maybe I'd chose a hillside being eroded by winds until it becomes nothing, basically it's like it was all this random stuff that wore away at me for years on end until I ended up like this.
I kind of wish I was different, more outgoing, less sensitive, you know, more like other people but I guess I wasn't meant to end up like that, I don't really mind that I ended up like this [that's my people pleasing talking ignore that] because – I think – this past year that I've met people who will be with me for the rest of my life, at least I hope so.
People would probably describe me as kind, smart, possibly warm-hearted, I suppose I am all those things in the end, my friends would probably call me funny, an idiot, among other endearing terms and that is true as well, I guess it depends on who you are to me as how you would chose to define me.
The thing is however, to myself I am all those things, from nice and kind to an idiot with an altogether rather crappy sense of dark and dirty humor that sometimes people don't end up liking. Really, I think I'm just a girl, still trying to figure out her place in this godforsaken world.
It doesn't really matter how I see myself though because everyone see's themselves differently, some people define themselves by their body count, others by their weight, some even by the things that they like. I know I shouldn't be worrying how people see me but how can I not, I'm an insecure, self-centered fucking prick who only see's herself as what others value her as, like really Maddie? You're never going to be happy if you keep doing that.
Oh well.
It's my life.
