This side of the blog hasn't seen any love in a while. Actually, it hasn't seen much of anything at all since I added this page way back when in March; only six months ago but it feels like a lifetime with everything that has happened.
I have pretty much had all the time anyone in the world could ever want to
As we can see from the examples above, describing yourself to other people is serious business (because who wouldn't want to date a guy with a cat named fluffymissprincessalice the fifth?). In all seriousness though, it can be quite difficult to sum ourselves up in a few words, especially if we are trying to impress other people or make ourselves sound as perfect and 'normal' as possible. What is normal anyways?
I'm not sure if I have made much progress in the last months when it comes to describing myself to other people, but I think that I am getting a better sense of who I am.One of my biggest struggles was viewing myself as I thought other people saw me. When people looked at me, I thought they saw "that girl who keeps disappearing from school, work, social life, etc. to do medical things". To an extent, this may be true. I know I got a lot of questions in high school about why I missed so much school and was on crutches for so long, in university the firs thing a lot of my class mates asked me about was my health, and in college people just blew me off when I said "I'm exhausted today," because Jedida's just always tired, nothing new... I think I was so concerned about other people looking at me like "that sick girl" that I actually started to see myself like that. Instead of being a person with quirks and hobbies and dreams, I saw myself as the the sick chic, and being sick overshadowed everything else. the relapse in particular affected how I viewed myself; I was ill for so long with the infection but then I got better. With the relapse there was this definite feeling that I would be sick forever, so I viewed the infection as the biggest most significant thing in my life. Being sick was what defined me as a person. Over the past months however, that image of myself has really changed. In part, I think this is because I was trying to live such an ordinary adult life through everything - living on my own, nursing school, friends. In the past, life kind of stopped when I was sick. I missed a lot of high school, reduced my course load in university, lived at home where my mum could take care of me. But when you are an adult, ordinary life goes on. You still have to buy groceries, do your laundry and dishes, clean your house, and get school stuff/work done. So I was doing all of these things while I was really really sick. That made me realize that I am more than the bone infection; that the infection doesn't have to rule over all else.
So, am I anywhere nearer figuring out how to describe myself to other people? Not really. But do I have a clearer sense of who I am? Yes! I am not just a person with a bone infection. And believing that about myself is a big step in the right direction to being happy with myself.
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24/03/2015
Hello! My name is Jedida.
I am a nerdy, tea loving, always day dreaming twenty-two year old.
Oh, an a bibliophile (great lover of books!)
When people ask me who I am, I usually go on some spiel about my university degree or work experience (not that having been a cashier or a paper girl is that unique, or even exciting... unless you count customers yelling at you because the chopsticks they just bought cost a dollar more than they thought or having a surprise thunderstorm ruin your cartload of 93 newspapers.)
I also, at some point, tend to tell people about my chronic bone infection, but I like to think that is something that I have rather than something that I am, so we won't talk about that on this page.
I guess what I am trying to say, is that I find it really easy to tell people things about myself, but not so much conveying to them who I actually am. This is, in my opinion, something that we all struggle to do. Maybe none of us actually know who we really are? Or maybe we change so much or so quickly that it is hard to keep up with ourselves?
Over the next months, while I wait to have surgery (hopefully this fall!.... but you didn't read that. We aren't talking about that here), I want to work on figuring out who I am. You might say "Of course you know who you are! You're you! How an you not know?" But I don't know if it is that easy. Everyone has things that they like or dislike. Favorite foods, flowers, seasons, etc. We all have our own thoughts and opinions, some that we keep private and others that we make really really clear to others. Everyone has quirks and their own peculiar way of doing things that might make sense to no one else but feel perfectly right just to them. Out of all this and some many other things, how do we actually know who we are? I want to figure that out for myself and have therefore added this page to my blog. And not to mention the bone infection again, but I totally will - I need to really figure out who I am beside the stuff inside my leg that keeps coming back and needing more surgery and time and energy and worry and attention from my life. I have to be more than that girl who keeps disappearing from school, work, social life, etc. to do medical things. Hopefully posting here might help with figuring that out.
