In His Eyes

In his eyes, I am fantastic in so many ways.

That he sees me as fantastic means the world to me! He sees the strength, caring, smarts, love, silliness, insecurities, craziness, passion, and weaknesses in me. He likes all the parts of me. He has seen me at my worst, at my lowest, and he still likes me. And that is helping me to learn to like myself again. He sees me and encourages me to do what I want, to be myself, to find out more about what I like and what I want to do. That is one of the many reasons why I value him so much.

That he sees me as fantastic is amazing, and wow it also hurts! In a good way, but it hurts. Rarely in my life have I felt that people knew the real me, let alone liked the real me. Yes, I know that some of that is self-fulfilling because I haven't often let people see the real me. (See "Who Am I?" post.) But that trust problem came from so many times where I did share who I was with people and got shunned for it. For whatever reason, I didn't have much of this before. It is so good to have it now but there is some pain at knowing it was missing for so long. And here he is his knowing and loving me. It is a little scary. I don't want to let him down.

I will add that he is not the only one seeing and saying this to me, especially lately. Maybe I am being more trusting of my friends and sharing with them the real me. Maybe there are more people in my life looking to see me. Or maybe I am just listening better now.

-A

Who am I?

I have a few insecurities. Don't we all? But mine tend to revolve around who I am. I don't see me as having a clear cut personality. Damn you Katie Atkinson for saying those words so long ago, but they have sat in my memory for years. I feel that I often become whoever I need to be around different people, a chameleon of personalities. So, if it changes that much, what is it that I am? Or, is that a personality type? I was told tonight that I make people comfortable around me ... is that because of who I am or that I am adept at reflecting back to them someone they want to be around. Or, again, is that a personality in and of itself and this isn't something to stress and fret over. Maybe I just need to accept that who I am is just so many different, near opposite ideas, and not that I change to fit the situation. But that what I am is a personality that is quiet & outgoing, reserved & flirty, dreamer & grounded, chaotic & a planner.

Ok, bare with me because to me this is related: I don't have many friends. Or, I don't perceive myself to have many friends. I would say that I can count on one hand the number of people that actively seek to spend time with me, and I acquired 3 of them in the last few months. Ok, not counting family. And I mean people that don't include me in a long list of others, that don't include me as an after thought, that don't include me because I am dating or married to one of their friends. I am sure some of this is my fault. Often, I don't go seeking to spend time with people who could be closer friends (Melanie, Honey, Gail ... ) because I don't think that they would want to spend time with me. What kind of messed up self-fulfilling set up is that?!?!? Or, like the folks at work, I don't think they'd like the real me so they only see small parts of who I am. Gah! But if I don't know who I am, then who am I showing them and who am I hiding?!?! Yeah, I'm a bit messed up on this.

I know when I left Jason, I was really worried about where I would land among our friends. I had become so distant from my friends in NC after the move down here. And I chalked most of my new friends in Georgia as actually being Jason's friends and my acquaintances. Which is pretty much how that turned out. I acquired new friends then through Brooks ... but they seem to have become distant through our break-up. Not all, but some. So, as I look back, I don't see a solid group of friends that have been with me for longer than 5 years. I had friends in high school, in college, while teaching in NC, and now while living in GA. But it seems that rarely does a friendship with someone carry over into the next segment of the timeline of my life. Again, I'm willing to take some of the fault. But then that bothers me about who that makes me. I wonder what it is about me that seems to get a good group of friends, and then cut them loose and move on to another group.

So, for now, thank you to those that are my friends. My goal is to do better by you and not lose you in the next few years. My goal is to also set up some time for me to get together with some of the others, the ones that may be lost friends if I don't.

-A

Away too long

Everything goes in cycles. I post here off and on ... but I know it is here. Why not more often? I only came back here today because I was bored and decided to catch up on a buddy's blog. I say "buddy" but he doesn't even know that I know of his blog. I haven't seen him in a while and if I emailed him, I doubt he would know who I was unless I mentioned my husband. My husband ... my soon to be ex-husband. Who do I become once we are divorced? Who am I now to my friends that I acquired through him? I've already lost one friend because of this separation. I wonder how many more ... I wonder how many won't even be able to recall who I am when I can't say that I am Jason's wife any more.

Anyways, back to Mark's blog - he was a paladin (which I can see) so I had to go and see what class I was. :( First I was an NPC ... nothing special. Not anything good, just exactly that: nothing special. Who wants to be nothing special. So, of course I couldn't just leave it at that. I took the quiz again. I only changed a few answers and still really don't think that I incorrectly answered any the first or second time through but this time I get a prestige class. Odd that only 2 or 3 different answers bumped me up from NPC, past a regular class, to a prestige class. I'm guessing it is just a prestige class because it says that I'm a mix of two classes/abilities.

Arcane Trickster
22% Combativeness, 100% Sneakiness, 76% Intellect, 47% Spirituality
Brilliant and sneaky: You are an Arcane Trickster!
Score! You have a prestige class. A prestige class can only be taken after you've fulfilled certain requirements. This may mean that you're an exceptionally talented person, but it probably doesn't.
Arcane Tricksters combine arcane magic with rogue skills and sensibilities. They use their magic to confuse their opponents or to augment their more mundane, roguish skills. If you thought it was annoying keeping an eye that that rogue, the Arcane Trickster is probably picking your pocket from the other side of the room.
Both smart and sneaky, you're probably the type of person that loves planning practical jokes... either that or knocking over banks.



My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 13% on Combativeness

You scored higher than 99% on Sneakiness

You scored higher than 61% on Intellect

You scored higher than 36% on Spirituality

The RPG Class Test
http://www.okcupid.com/tests/take?testid=1532690756472625027

The Perfect Woman

I got a great compliment yesterday. I was offering to paint up a miniature for a friend and mentioned that I was an *award winning painter* now! Yeah, I was bragging. I think I'm a pretty good mini-painter and I've been absolutely thrilled since the con that I won (well, tied) a painting contest.

After that, I was told I was the "perfect woman". Then, my qualities were listed: I paint minis, I game -and I'm not the wife that gets dragged to gaming, I actively seek it out- , I roleplay, I look good (and what woman really hates hearing that???), I wear snarky t-shirts (yesterday was "rogues do it from behind" - hey! I was playing my rogues yesterday!), and I crack witty jokes.

I've got to admit, that was a very pleasing ego boost! Thank you, Sean. The next beer is on me!

I think a lot of it is that I have always gotten along better with men than with women. And I don't know why that is. It works out well in the gaming community, there really aren't that many women that play rpgs. Hell, that just makes me more of a unique quantity.

I really hated moving down to the Hot-lanta area. It took me over a year before I started even making friends. And all of them are gamers. That certainly isn't a complaint. I'm thankful. If it weren't for the active gaming community here, it would be just me and the family. Odd ... with the gamers, at cons, I am constantly seeing people, chatting, smiling, having fun. Outside of them, I'm very much alone. Even looking at my buddy list on Trillian, the only people on there other than gamers are either family (and in my family, only my mom isn't a gamer also) or my students.

Hrmmm ... my students ... that is a post for a different day.

L8r