Being real

As far back as I can remember, I've been a perfectionist. It's kind of weird because I'm not like that about everything (my parents would most certainly tell you that I'm not very perfectionistic about keeping my room or car clean). That stuff isn't as big of a deal around my family, just because I could never keep up the act. No way, I'd go crazy. Around other people though, I struggle. I struggle to be as collected and put-together as possible. I have trouble wanting my life to look neat and easy from the outside when it's not. Nobody has a perfect life even though all these fancy bloggers and fashionable people try to convince us that they do. 
Somehow, in the past year, I finally just got tired of pretending to be as perfect as possible. It was a constant act to look as good as I could so people would like me or think good stuff about me, etc. I don't know when it happened, but I just kind of realized the sheer pride and ridiculousness of trying to act like that. It may have just been because it's actually been a really tough year and I couldn't keep up the act anymore, or it may have been that I got sick of trying to act like someone I wasn't, or maybe both. I'm not perfect and it's absolute arrogance to act like I am or that I could possibly be in this life.
However, over the past year, especially in the past few months, I've just kind of had to push that mask aside. That isn't how this is. That's not how community works either and it's absolutely ridiculous of me to try to pretend. Slowly, God has been breaking down those walls, showing me how proud and selfish I've been for acting that way. Sure, I still have my stuff, and everyone does, but I'm not fake. Although it scares me, I'm being real and honest about my struggles and imperfections. I don't build walls around myself when I meet people, even though that's scary. It's scary to open yourself up to other people's judgement, but you've just got to remember that their judgement doesn't matter. It doesn't and, though that can be freeing, it's also really hard to actually believe that, but God's judgement is the only one that matters and Christ has made me perfect in His eyes. It's not that I want people to think badly about me, and it's not that I'm necessarily okay with it if they do, but it'll happen, and I'll come to terms with that when it happens I guess.  

"Being real is more a process of letting go than it is the effort of becoming.

I don't really have to become myself,

although at times it feels this way.

I already am what I am.

And that is both the simplest and the hardest thing for me to realize."