It's Not Me, Its Insecurity

Hey everyone,

Thank you for checking out my story. I started writing this in 2012 and never finished it. I am going to be re-posting the first few chapters with slight changes and finish the rest of the story. Please let me know what you think and give any feedback that you can.

Enjoy!

                                                                                   -Prologue-

Sometimes I feel like I'm bipolar. One minute I'll be happy and joking around with my friends and the next all I want to do is crawl into bed with a good book and forget the world that I live in. If I weren't so painfully shy around strangers then maybe I wouldn't be repressing who I really am. It would be so much easier if I had the confidence to act like myself around people other than my friends and family. People would know that I'm not just the quiet girl at the back of the room. They would know that I love to sing and have been playing guitar and piano since I was ten. They would know that when I was little, I won first place in multiple dance competitions but quit my dance lessons when I turned twelve because I was too self-conscious to wear the tight fitting costumes. They would know that when I'm tired, I start to laugh at everything or nothing at all and then crash and fall asleep wherever I am. They would know a lot more about me that would shock them. A lot more that they wouldn't expect.

My friends Kayla and Andrea always tell me I'm a walking contradiction. While I'm with them I'm the most outgoing. I laugh, make stupid jokes and talk nonstop but once in class or around people I don't really know, I'm as silent as a mouse.

I hate myself for it sometimes. I wish I could go up and talk to anyone without being afraid of what they think of me or that they will judge the way I look. I want to be able to go out for just one day without having to fix my shirt countless times to make sure it fits right or checking my hair in every shiny object that I pass. Since I started to lose a little weight, I've gotten better at it. I force myself to not look into mirrors or tug on my clothes but in my mind I think about it all the time.

My insecurities about my weight have held me back in a lot of things in high school. I never put myself out there and was really reserved. I didn't volunteer much and only attended school events if I was with my friends. The biggest problem that I had though was with boys. Due to the fact that I was too shy to talk to guys, I never had a boyfriend or went on a date for that matter. On occasion if someone talked to me, I would stutter out an answer, look uncomfortable and the conversation would die out.

The thing is, I'm a hopeless romantic. I'm always reading books about love and romance wanting to be the girl that falls in love and gets the happy ending, but I can't even work up the courage to talk to a guy, let alone fall in love with one.

In an effort to gain enough confidence and put myself out there, the summer before I left for college I went on a diet. I had hoped that once I started to lose weight and felt better about myself I would get to college and be able to talk more and show people who I was.

Now it's winter vacation, the first semester is over, I'm still on my diet, and nothing has changed except my pant size. It was challenging, but in six months I lost thirty pounds, half of my goal. And although I have lost the weight that I thought was holding me back, I still don't have the courage to talk to people. I just can't get over my insecurities and I know it's going to be a life-long problem.

I'm determined though. Soon everyone will see who I am and I won't care if they like me or not. I'm going to change my life around, if it's the last thing I do.