Do you really know me?

I used to be happy.

If someone's going to ask me to describe myself, I think that's what I'm going to say. Not that I am particularly unhappy right now, but everyday I seem to think that I was happier yesterday. (something to this effect).

The thing is, I would like to tell you what happened to me.
But I don't know how, and I don't think anything concrete really happened. Except that we all grew up, aged a bit (quite a fair bit really), and expectations of life become harsher on each one of us.

It's like when I was younger, I felt that time was kinder on us. If we screwed things up, we can always try again and again. Or perhaps do something else. But as we grow older, it is expected of us to be wiser and not screw up as often as we tend to.

This is unsettling for me.
Not because I am a perfectionist. (Maybe I am, but I can't admit it.) It is however unsettling because I find the constraints of time suffocating. I don't want to make the wrong decisions because I am afraid of screwing things up even though I've made no decisions whatsoever. In fact, I don't make decisions at all because I don't want to screw up.

Books and advice always say the same thing.
Go with your dreams.
Do what you want with your life and do it right this one time. Because nobody gets a second chance in your life.
The messages I've read them all clearly. But the thing with me is, I get inspired by all these messages only at that point in time when I am reading the book. I feel so inspired I get goosebumps all over and then, when I sleep and wake. I forget all about that again.

Till another book.

I want to drop everything I have in my hands now and restart life all over.
Doesn't matter if it's too late, as long as I get to restart everything.
Shift in a new environment, get new clothes, new shoes, new room, new friends, new life, new education, new everything.

Maybe the problem with me is, I can't let the past go.
I live in the what-could-have-been everyday.
As much as I bravely tell myself that I choose not to regret my decisions, I think about them all the time.
It really is different from regretting.
I don't harbour regrets (I tell myself), I just simply think about them.

But the act in itself is the same as regretting. Because if I didn't, I wouldn't be thinking about it at all isn't it?

I hate how I contradict my every sentence.
And the funny thing is, I catch myself contradicting myself, and I wonder if I should really continue with that same sentence.
Sometimes, i just let it go.

I've been motivated to think about who I really am, and what I'm really like after a simple passing remark that was said during dinner yesterday.
My brother was entertaining us with some comments about me, and my like for complaints. And my mother said, "he's just giving you his personal comment"

I don't know what strike me so deep.
The fact that my brother was commenting about me, something I never really imagined he would. Or the fact that my mother tried to neutralise the situation, and said he was just giving me a harmless comment (his personal opinion).
I felt nothing about the comment made, but instead felt strongly about the person I've always think myself to be.
Suddenly everything around me broke down.
Have I been too hard on myself and the ones around me, that I neglect to see what others thought of me?

I've always maintained that I didn't live for others. Thus, I didn't need to care what others thought of me. I do what I believe in, and not what others thought should be right.
Values are individualistic, something only you could believe in and hold close to your heart.
This was something I valued, my freedom to express what I felt was right. I didn't need people to tell me what I am doing is right/wrong. I make my wrong mistakes in life, and live to correct them. So I'd rather blame myself for a wrong than to blame others for my wrong.
That's what I valued, and believed in.

This value is questioned yesterday.
Not by a direct comment targeted towards this value of mine, but a rather indirect one.

My brother merely commented on something small and insignificant. I wasn't even taking seriously what he was saying, because before he could even finish saying what he had wanted to say, I very instinctively already blocked it out and thought, "he got it wrong, he doesn't know me".
So when my mother said to me, that it was his personal opinion of me, it was akin to having read my mind. Like she knew I already blocked out his comment.

I was thus, forced to question myself.
Could they be right, and I be wrong?

What if, the ones who really know me well enough are the ones around me, and not myself?

I'd always thought that people do not understand me.
They don't know what it's like to be me, or think the way I think or have to think the way I do. But what if I was wrong.

What if the ones around me are the ones who know me more than I know myself? Because they see things about me that I do not see?

I started questioning myself.
Do I really know me?
The person I see as myself, is she the person that I merely want to be, and not a true mirror reflection of who I really am? And all these while, I've simply been caught up in the make-belief world that I choose to be in?

Honestly, I do not know what I've become.
Perhaps I could tell you about the girl that I was some time ago. Maybe 2, 3 years ago. I could describe her, what she believed in, her personality, character and values rather clearly.
However, when asked to describe myself now. I can't.
I can only look back and tell you who I was, and what I was like. But to describe in detail who or what I am like now.
I can't.

Everyday, I dig deep within myself and try to smile a sincere smile.
I give up when I realise I simply can't be sincere enough to believe the world today is better than yesterday. I've lost so much of myself to the past, that I cannot seem to be settled enough for the current.

Does this make sense?

What happens? When in the process of searching yourself, you begin to dislike the person you've found. The more you find out about the person you are, the more you want to get away from yourself.
What do you do next?
Change, accept or ditch the search?

I cannot yet decide.