i sometimes feel things too deeply
though there are days i barely notice the sun
too lost in my own emotions
tangled in regrets of things done… and not done
maybe one day i’ll learn to move on
maybe the time will come when i’ll have no choice
but to walk away from the lies you keep saying
maybe then i’ll find my voice
Tell us all about your best confidence outfit. Don’t leave out the shoes or the perfect accessories.
I could wax on poetic about high heels,
though I can no longer wear them
mama always said I had trunks for legs
but there’s nothing I can do about them.
I could muse about those tailored suits
with cinched in waists and hems that flared
I could write about so many fads
of all the fashion looks I so dared
But the days I love the most,
no matter what the occasion,
work day, rest day
it won’t take much of a persuasion
Shirt and jeans, they beckon to me
calling out my name,
my trusty Toms, and then I’m off –
I shall have no shame
But wear the clothes that fit me best
that shall last till that final mile
How shall I pull it off, you ask?
Why, I wear them all with a smile!
Are you full of confidence or have you ever suffered from Imposter Syndrome? Tell us all about it.
My mother always said I was the confident one, the talkative one – the one who could sell ice to Eskimos if it came down to it. She said I had a knack for getting people at ease – but only if I wanted to. When I would tell people that I was shy, they often laughed and disagreed. So maybe in light of the fact that I’ve had my own private massage practice in the last 17 years, and I’ve coached other massage therapists on how to get out there and present themselves, my mother was right. Maybe I am the confident one in the family, the one who, according to a former lover, would most likely have been the one branded in kindergarten as “runs with scissors” – although the first word is unnecessary in my case.
I do remember however, a time when I was the great pretender. I was working then as a radio newscaster while still in college, after the radio station I interned at hired me after my internship was over. The position gave me instant popularity, for how cool is it to have your voice heard all over the island, complete with your American accent, and fancy name (my own), and even have your face included in the society pages as you attend parties here and there?
That year, the college newspaper was looking for applicants to fill in the positions soon to be vacated by the senior year. I had decided at that time to apply for Features editor, but during the application process, as I was circling the position I was interested in, the outgoing editor-in-chief told me that other than so-and-so, no one was brave enough to apply for her position. Not one to let a challenge go by unchallenged, I checked off the editor-in-chief box and waited. Another girl had applied for the position before me and she was the top of our class, hardworking, very studious, but painfully shy. While my social life was booming, hers was literally non-existent – and our grades would have probably reflected that.
The application process included a series of interviews, two of them facing a panel of sisters and professors, each one asking questions about how one would run the paper should they be chosen. When my turn came, I put on my newscaster face and voice, and looked each one of those people in the eye when I answered each question they posed to me with an answer that I knew they wanted to hear. To me it was a game and nothing more. I had no intention of being the Editor-in-Chief of a Catholic college paper.
But I had every intention of winning a bet.
I still remember seeing the look on her face when one of our professors congratulated me as I entered the classroom late as usual (my excuse was work – I had to run to the radio station at 5 AM to record the news for every hour that day, and then rush to attend my classes, so my tardiness was excused) and I realized what had just happened. I had been chosen as Editor-in-Chief while the other girl was to be my Assistant Editor.
It’s not one of my proudest achievements – nor is it an achievement at all. For I do not remember doing anything worth calling myself the Editor-in-Chief. I let her take over my duties while I became the “face” of the paper, the one to convince the school board to run something controversial or at the very least, interesting enough for the students to read though we never could – it was a Catholic college after all. That poor girl did all the heavy lifting for a full year till I graduated and she took over my position, while I did nothing inside the newspaper office but hang outside at the quad with my friends, practicing for the softball varsity games that we all lost, our ice coolers filled with bottles of beer.
For this great pretender had never intended to be the real thing…at least not then.
Are you good at what you do? What would you like to be better at.
Photographers, artists, poets: show us CONFIDENT.
I never expected to do what I do now – and be confident at it.
When I worked in physical therapy for about eight years, patients kept telling me that I had wonderful hands, and that I should consider taking classes in massage. I still remember how I’d laugh nervously and thank them for such encouraging words, though I cringed inwardly.
I never told them that my first memory of massage involved walking through a darkened corridor reading up the names of each stall on either side of me. One read ‘Tahiti’ and another ‘Hawaii’, and the next one, ‘Thailand’ and so on. It was my father’s ‘gentleman’s club’ and I had strayed away from the main room and found myself in the section of the club that my father probably never wanted any of his children to know about. From that moment on, the word massage always sent me back to that darkened corridor, a child lost in a place she wasn’t supposed to be.
As of today I have been a massage therapist for about fifteen years. Officially. That means I actually went to school to be a massage therapist and began working immediately after I graduated. I’ve worked on men, women, teenagers and even children (my favorite quote from one child is, “I know what heaven smells like,” – though I suspect it was the blend of lavender and orange diffusing from the candle). I’ve worked on the elderly with Alzheimer’s disease where every visit is the first visit, and I’ve worked in many different locations as well – in my office, at doctors’ offices, in homes, universities, at grand parties and even at the Queen Mary. Once I even gave a massage in a crack house. Alright, alright – it was a Hollywood set but it was so convincing, I just had to set up my table there once my client and I found out that the lighting guys would take over an hour to set up the lights and we had all that time to kill.
I specialize in the treatment of chronic pain caused by repetitive strain – injuries like rotator cuff syndrome, thoracic outlet syndrome and sciatica pain. After the pain is gone, the clients continue to see me under ‘maintenance’ massage, and some of them have been with me for fifteen years. I guess you could say that I’m pretty confident in what I do as I even teach it, though there are days when I wonder what the hell I’m doing.
I mean, I graduated with a degree in Journalism, and worked in radio and advertising. What the hell, then, am I doing in the field of massage? But each time my confidence wanes, and I’m feeling quite unsure of myself, I tell myself that I’ve come a long way from being that kid standing in that darkened hallway. While I may not be the journalist that I had thought I was going to be, or the writer that I dreamed I would be, I’m doing something I love and I’m actually confident doing. I don’t even see it as work because I just love it – though don’t get me wrong. I also expect to be paid for what I do.
At the very least, I have confidence that what I do is worth paying for, even out of pocket. And you don’t even need to step inside the stall marked ‘Tahiti’ to benefit from it.
Morrighan's Muse 