We Won't Need Legs To Stand.

I found this post in my unpublished posts section. I don't ever remember putting it there or what I intended to do with it... It was blank except for the title "We won't need legs to stand" which is a Sufjan Stevens song. I probably had high hopes for this becoming an otherworldly and deeply artistic post but must have come up short when it came to actually writing it.

So instead I'll share this with you:

I swear I don't do it on purpose. At least it just tipped over and only spilled a little.


But now I'm actually going to get serious. Kind of.

I was thinking today about the fact that I am really just one giant oxymoron. I doubt that oxymoron is the right word to use here but it's the only word that almost kind of describes the way I am.

In some respects, I'm incredibly ambitious. To the point where I try so many things, that I'm not able to perfect any of my skills, but just hover at being mediocre at a bunch of stuff. I'm a mediocre guitar player, artist, singer/songwriter, actor, writer, poet, dog trainer, student, photographer... you get the picture (ha). I feel like I have the capability to be amazing at all of these things, if I were to just pick one (or settle for a few) and actually work at becoming amazing at it.

Now here's where the oxymoron part comes in. Despite the fact that I want to be good at all of these things, and that I try so many different things, I am probably the laziest person you'll ever meet. I skip class, I don't study, I'd rather do nothing than do something productive. I envy people who can focus their energy so much. If I had that focus I could definitely apply myself and become sufficient enough at one of the things I mentioned. So I would feel confident enough to actually show people. At this point I settle for telling people that I play guitar, but I often will refuse to prove it because I feel like I'm not good enough to submit to another person's judgment.

This habit is only reinforced when I complete a drawing and I'm so proud of it and all 4 hours it took me that I actually show someone.

Me: "Look what I drew!"

Random Person: "That's really good. I draw dogs too. Look at this."

And they respond by showing me a way better drawing that makes mine look like a bad cartoon drawing. It's even better when they whip up a masterpiece in five minutes as I'm standing there clutching my bad cartoon drawing that took me four hours.

Or, after my friend tells me I'm an amazing singer, I start telling people that I can sing. And then some random person tells me I have to sing for her. And I do it, because she says I have to, and plus my friend told me I'm amazing so it must be true... So then I sing for this person and she says "Yeah you are good." But follows up with not so nonchalantly singing something herself that makes me feel like William Hung.

And even though these people have the best of intentions and tell me that my William Hung impersonations and cartoons are fantastic, I still feel like they are judging me. Even though they are not.

It's like, they'll say this: "Wow that's a really fantastic drawing, you're so talented!!!" And I hear this: "........ I could do better. And I'll show you. Because you suck." Which isn't the case at all.

P.S. The dog drawing person and the nonchalant singing person are two different people. Because they both have enough sense to actually focus on one artistic talent instead of trying to tackle all of them and coming up short as a bad cartoon drawing William Hung impersonator.

I had written three paragraphs about boys here, but it was so awkward that even I couldn't handle it. Maybe I'll talk about how all my ex-boyfriends were way more talented than me another time... or not.