On cynicism, self-reflection, and silver linings

So. Funny story. I started writing a post last night, but I was half asleep at the time and got interrupted by a knock at my door, so I stopped writing mid-sentence and did not resume until almost twenty-four hours later, at which point I had sort of forgotten where I was even going with the post. Here it is twenty-six hours from the time I originally started writing. I have read and reread my finished post—which I have open in a separate document as I type these very words—and have come to the conclusion that it's rubbish. It sounds very contrived, which is not what I wanted at all. (Apparently my inner voice turns into a stuffy fuddy-duddy when I'm exhausted.) However, I still want to post something and share what's been on my mind lately, so I'm going to give you the SparkNotes version.

The past seven years made me quite a cynical person, and I've been trying to change that in the past several months.

I was miserable and lonely in high school. I won't go into detail here, but I have written about it in previous posts. What's relevant to this post is that I was isolated more often than not. So frequently I wished not only that my situation would be different but that I would be different. I just wanted to be normal. I wanted to fit in. Because on top of all of my health issues, I am what most would (and have, to my face) call weird.

I wasn't cognizant of it at the time, but all those months and years I spent in isolation weren't just a rough patch in my life; they were a formative period. Since I started this blog, I have been really big on introspection and trying to figure out why I am the way I am. In my mind, I have tended to focus on why I developed my negative qualities, like my cynicism and social anxiety. I have wished that I could be different in those respects too. I never realized that almost every. single. good. thing. in my life is there because of the exact same events that brought the undesirable things. Some are more indirectly related than others, which is why it took me so long to see it, but that doesn't change the fact.

As I said earlier, I have been trying really hard to change my way of thinking. I have been constantly reminding myself that I don't need to be different. The things that have happened to me had a reason for happening. They made me what I am. And were I other than I am, I would not be myself. That means that everything in my life would be different, good and bad, and I know that it isn't worth trading the positive to get rid of the negative. Especially since I have so many wonderful things in my life right now.