by Teresa Antoinette

Created on: October 23, 2008

You've decided that not believing in yourself is an annihilation of the soul. It is an unconditional sin. It is a dependable unavailability. It is a curse without a disguise. You play it safe when you do not believe in yourself. You dip a toe into superb waters and pull it back out before gauge of temperature even registers. So-called "leaps of faith" are passionately out of the question. There is nothing to ask, and nothing to ponder. You just perch nervously. You never break a sweat, you never scrape your knees, and you never feel a damn thing other than the unmitigated phobia of yourself. You tell the mirror you are just cautious. Your heart pleads with you and you silence it with more self-doubt. Why are you so alert? it says. Your fears have no merit. You never even gave yourself a chance.

You wore your father's tragic beliefs like a parka in an igloo of self-deception. He gave it to you unknowingly. You trusted him and his flawed dispositions because you were a loyal five-year old with too much forsaken love. Maybe he would love you if you did things his way, you thought. You were wrong. Your heart was too tremendous for a person who never quite knew what to do with it. You knocked on his door and he didn't even know how to turn the knob. Maybe he was just afraid of himself too. Here was a little girl; his little girl, who had what he didn't even know he needed; didn't believe himself to be worthy, and everyone lost out.

When you doubt yourself you have vibrant desires that desperately beg to see the light of day. You want to see the globe, but your vision is too narrow to look beyond the fear you carry around in your old and tired baggage. You want to know real adventure but doubts linger for far too long like cigarette smoke on clean linens. They never seem to wash out. You sought external adoption from alcohol because internal acceptance was too unthinkable. Alcohol made you a part of the family at your first gathering. It was a self-betrayal that was birthed from the miscarriage of self-belief.

Looking back, you see how not believing in yourself was your weapon of mass self-destruction. It opened up unfortunate doors to a world you didn't have to know existed. You realize that nothing that has happened to you can be erased, it can only be written over. No one is to blame; there are no valid fingers to be pointed. You pick yourself up by the strap of your ankle boots and you just keep walking. At first the self-belief is a bit flimsy. You trip a few times,

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