There’s Always More.
Have you ever strived to be a better person? Not just for yourself, but for those that you surround yourself with? Your family, your friends, and your colleagues to a certain extent. I have tried. I’m still trying. It’s been just over 2 years since I started working on myself to become the best version of myself that I could be. It’s been a long one and a tough one. With every passing day, I seem to learn something new about myself. Things I thought I knew but didn’t. These revelations are scary. Rather, it’s more scary than one might think. It’s difficult realizing that you don’t know yourself as well as you thought. Because who’s supposed to know you better than yourself? I hate myself sometimes when I find out these things, especially if they’re bad character traits, things that have brought hurt to those that I love. What hurts, even more, is realizing that you’ve hurt them unconsciously. You didn’t intend to, but you did. You most probably didn’t even realize what you’d done, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that you did. The sad part of it all is that sometimes it causes these people to withdraw from you. They become distant because you’re not what they need in their life, you’re not building them, you’re not helping them. You’re simply a negative force in their lives that needs to be removed, and the more I think about it, the more I begin to realize why I’m no longer friends with some people, or why I’m not as close with others, as I once was. My persona, my toxicity, and my negativity have chased them away, and there’s no one to blame but me.
You might be wondering where all this is coming from or not, doesn’t matter. What matters is that my eyes have been opened even more than they once were. I took time off to figure out a few things and dwell in the essence that is me. I figured out that I was codependent, majorly emotionally, narcissistic to a certain level, I’m very critical about everything, I never seem to let things go, I was manipulative, and I was a liar. Most importantly, I’m fundamentally a bad person. You’ll notice that there’s past tense in some of those characteristics. That’s because that’s what they are. In the past. They’re not a part of me anymore. I don’t allow them to be a part of me, I don’t allow them to make up who I am. Of course, there are times and situations when they come back roaring and swinging their ugly heads, along with the person I used to be. And at times, I want to, I feel like reverting to him. Why? It’s for the simple reason that he thrived! He was a horrible person, a monster (as I like to refer to him), but he never allowed himself to get hurt. He never allowed himself to feel anything. He plowed through life the same way oxen plow through a field. He left disaster, anger, hurt, and retribution in his wake, not caring for the consequences of his actions. Whatever blow life dealt him, he dealt one back. He was something.
I’m not going to lie, I liked the way I felt when I was him. Scratch that, I loved the way I felt when I was him. It felt good, really good being who he was. Not caring about who you hurt or how you hurt them, not allowing yourself to get too involved, but telling them just enough for them to believe that you were, always having the upper hand, and never allowing yourself to feel a thing. It’s funny how one rejection, one shot that failed to hit its target caused him to grow. Life does throw you lemons, and you have to make lemonade to the best of your abilities. He was what I made with the lemons I was given. It’s not the best lemonade, but it worked for me.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not proud of who I became after that failed shot. Do I wish things had gone better back then, then yes, yes, I do. Do I wish that I could change the past? No, I don’t. Yes, I have a humongous ego, which in all honesty took a serious hit all those years ago, and it played the biggest factor in creating 2015-2019 Tendo. But that person is gone now. Not completely, but he’s gone. The Tendo you see before you, the one writing all of this, has gone through some serious transformation and refining. He’s still a work in progress considering the fact that he’s realized that some of the things that he started to work on 2 or so years ago aren’t where they need to be. They aren’t where he wants them to be. They aren’t where he thought they were. Work still has to be done, and it’s quite a bit. This revelation is greatly attributed to the answers that he finally got. As it turns out, he needed the answers. Not to move on, but to allow him to better himself. To allow him to see the things that he thought were perfect, but were still greatly flawed. To see that he still has a long way to go to become the person he wants to be. I would say destined to be, but that sounds like a line straight out of a villain/hero movie, and it sounds cheesy as fuck!
The point I’m trying to make is that he’s a better person now than he was before. His growth and his journey have their setbacks, and in the process, he’s hurt those that he loves, mostly unintentionally, but they should know that he never meant to do so, and most importantly he loves them.
I do love you guys as much as I rarely say it, and my actions may not be the best indicator of that either (I’m also learning to have my actions match my words and say much more than my words do). Don’t you ever forget that.
Yours truly,
Tendo