Fake Personas and Fears

Hi. It's been a while. A lot has been going on and I wanted to share it with people. Honestly, I feel kinda weird typing this right now because I almost feel like I can't. I am a new person than I was before. And I know that it's okay and encouraged that I grow and change as a person. Don't get me wrong, I am happy that I am a changing person and can flow with the times, it just feels different than when I used to write these.

A big issue that I am having from being a 15-year old teenager is the fact that I care way too much about what people think of me and how I am perceived by everyone. I love myself, but I am still afraid of other people not liking me. I tend to put up a fake persona sometimes because I want people to like me. My real friends know and like both "sides" of me and honestly, I think a lot of them do the same thing. In my heart, however, I always know the real me.

I mean everyone wants to belong, right? Everyone wants to "fit in" and be wanted and loved. I certainly do. In fact, being forgotten and unwanted is my biggest fear. I know I'll always have God by my side, but I still get so scared that one day everyone is going to turn on me and hurt me and that I'll die alone.

I am afraid of being on the list of dead people during the hokehankist (a part in the Armenian Church Divine Liturgy that commemorates the deceased people in the church from that week) and nobody knowing who I am. Just another person on the list and everyone just waiting for the church service to end. And then everyone will file out and go to fellowship hour and not even realize that my name was said and even who I am.

And yes, I am aware that I of all people should not be worried about dying but I still do. I worry about everything. I call it spiraling. Spiraling is when I keep stressing all at once and I just can't stop overthinking. This week, I did a lot of spiraling. I am okay now. This week was just a rough one, but I got through it. It's a new start. It's a new week.

I also want to ask that for Thanksgiving, be thankful for everyone and everything around you. We live too much in the future and don't focus on what we have right now. So please, focus on how amazing your life is because there is good in everything:)

Follow your dreams

Everyone always tells me to follow my dreams. But what even is a dream? Is it a journey? A craving of something more? Well, according to Cinderella, "A dream is a wish your heart makes when you're fast asleep". Even though I live for Disney, I don't think this definition is very accurate. There isn't any action or hard work mentioned in Cinderella's connotation of a dream. So I looked it up. The exact definition is "a cherished aspiration, ambition, or ideal". So I guess Cinderella was a little bit right. Moral of the story: Don't doubt Disney.

This week was one of the worst weeks I have ever had. Nothing bad happened to me, but I was just so unlike myself and felt terrible about myself. I guess in the end, I was scared. This is something that is really hard for me to admit. But I was. I was scared.

I was scared about the Turkish flags on the Armenian schools in LA. I am writing a research paper on Armenian immigration, and it kills me to see that Armenians have been through so much hostility and hatred toward their culture and it continues to happen today. I was afraid that it would happen to my school. Even though my school is very safe, I was afraid that if it happened nobody would care. It turns out, there are people in my life who always seem to care about what I care about and would support me if anything like that ever happened to me. Sometimes I forget that they are there because I get too caught up in my head.

I was scared because I didn't have a plan for the future. It was overwhelming to me once I realized I don't have a favorite subject, or really a desire to have any specific job in the future. I don't know what I want to be when I grow up, and I now realize that it is ok. I don't even need to figure it out for years! I just like being prepared, but I now have learned that I do not need to prepare for things that are not happening in the near future.

In the end, I was scared because I didn't have a dream. Yes, I have wishes, but I am very hesitant to persue them. Now I understand what people mean when they say follow your dreams. It means to make your wishes a reality and never let them go because you are a strong and beautiful person and can do anything. As Cinderella would say, "Have faith in your dreams and someday, your rainbow will come smiling through"