Out of Sight Out of Mind

I hate when you buy things that you think you need and then give it maybe two weeks you've forgotten all about it and where you've put it.  If you put it 'away' drawer, closet or what have you easier to forget.  Then when someone asks you about it oh yeah that thing I bought let me find it to show you.  Now where did I put it?

Alot of things feel that way to me.  The out of sight out of mind canundrum.  I still find hiding places for Christmas presents, just because presents, even last year's Easter.  I hide it away so no one can find it and then when I need it, it's gone, missing, someone stole it, someone else moved it around to annoy me.  Sometimes that even happens with people in your life.  When you're not around it's easier to forget you.  To forget others.  Of course we eventually wonder but we put those things away.  I've been doing that to myself.  Not things.  Me.  If I put away who I really am and hide the things I love about myself to "protect" them, after awhile I forget they're there.  They become lost to me.  Talents, abilities, memories.

The sad thing is when I start to bring them out again they're rusty dusty messes.  I forget to let myself shine on the things I'm good at sometimes.  Do you do that?  Feel inadequate or stupid for being good at something just because everyone else around the table is talking about how bad they are at it?  I've even brought up that I'm good at something everyone else was complaining about and got laughed at right there on the spot because they automatically assumed I was lying or they're impossibilities have to be my impossibilities.  Confuses me really.  I always admire people that are strong at the things I'm weakest at. I'm not afraid to say that to them hopefully they accept the compliment.

I feel uncomfortable too with compliments especially when all I can think about is oops I didn't mean to do it that way glad it worked out hope no one noticed.  I get genuine feedback and not so genuine feedback and sometimes the person is so good with their compliments I can't tell which is which!  Diamond or Zirconia.  I really wish I hadn't have put some of these things away in a drawer.  When I was younger I thought they were annoying to others and so I put them away.  Now I look at them and they were beautiful parts of me that I still struggle, out of sheer habit now, to reignite.

Cuts me to the core.  My sore spot.  Musical talents and abilities.  I have been blessed with so many of them.  Just because of a couple of comments I won't even sing in the shower or out loud with my mp3 player on anymore.  I've been singing in choirs and competitions my whole life.  I finally thought after hiding in the back of the closet that I would dust it off.  It's not the same but improving, and I am determined to find my way back to all these instruments including my voice the best I can.  But the fact that somethings I've loved so deeply I chose to remove from myself, haunts me.  It's like my own personal hell.  Hard to fix it when it's you vs you.  Knowing that you allowed this to happen, chose it, accepted it.

Please, be who you are.  There will always be people who will love and accept you even if it's not the whole world.  Let your inner self shine and put the awkward inadequacies away.  There is more freedom in taking criticism and being true to yourself, than putting those things away to 'fit in'.  Don't ever be something you're not.  There's only one you.  Be that.