Screw New~ I want my Old me!!

My Ama said: You seem to have lost all your confidence~ you were very different when you were young~

I think this sentence at the end of this year, is changing my whole perspective on life. Screw new me, thin me, better me, I want myself back, the old me, the courageous dreamy ambitious energetic and happy and confident me.

Often times, I have been so much busy judging my past life and experiences as well as struggles and trying to focus on the present in the hope of a good future that I think, I have stopped listening to inner-most self and my own inner voice that led me to become who I am today.

When Ama told me that, I tried becoming defensive and told her- all graduate students are like this, we are depressed and we have imposter syndrome. Years back, I didn’t have that or if I had, it was very less. I am someone who battled my way into some really awesome work in Nepal, among toxic people, toxic environment, and moreover really difficult personal life.

But, wasn’t Grad school above everything for me? It was something for which I left my decade-long career, my identity, lifestyle, everything behind~ it was and is still my passion. But why did it cost me my confidence? Why my well-being?

I think this is because I don’t know how to do Grad-school. This is because my research on grad-school and imaginary things presented on the fancy websites and happy faces of the students weren’t enough. This is because I am a first-gen Graduate student in my family of four and my mentors back home had overconfidence in me I think things would be easier for me.

Grad school can be fun! And, I think these two and half years have been the best phase of my life in terms of the things I always wanted to do: study and write and teach.

Years back during my teenage days, Ama and I would talk and dream of a life full of books, writing, and teaching. And, right now, I am living our dream and she is so true, I might have lost some of the confidence because I believe in others more than myself. I have been harsh to myself, I have been pressurizing myself like crazy as my BFF says and thus, I have suppressed who I am to become the idealized me and it has cost me to lose my confidence.

So, screw that idealized me! I want myself to be back~

12.28.2018

Fairfax, VA