I am human.

Last evening / early morning, a good and quite wise friend (I hope you are reading this) explained confidence to me. I am cautious to qualify confidence- a concept, a goal, a state of being? Previous to last night, I thought of confidence as a goal to strive for, a "thing" to be attained through hard work, determination, and focus. Now, post-conversation with my sage friend, I don't know what the hell I was thinking. Did I think confidence was something magical that streamed down upon one, sparkling and glistening in a ray of light as angels sang, after said one ran the extra mile, raised the test score an extra 100 points, or captured the person of her dreams? Kind of.

"The difference between being confident and not being confident is just that. It's being." - sage friend.

"Huh?"- foolish me.

You are either confident or you are not. No amount of intellectual or physical achievement is going to make you confident. You have to be confident about who you are everyday, waking up, every morning.

I always found songs with lines such as, "I would die if I knew I could come back different" or "You go to sleep dreaming how you would, be a different kind, if you thought you could" really profound. It's exactly how I feel; I want to wake up different. Because waking up different would be waking up not exactly me, as I am now. I could wake up a different me, a confident me.

So, I work out, a lot. It's not to be healthy, it's to be thin and physically appealing. I read thoughtful books to seem interesting. I achieve(d) high grades to appear intelligent and successful and make people proud. I don't get caught listening to pop music because I don't want to be perceived as a shallow member of the current pop culture. This doesn't work.

Everything I am, is a facade. I am a fake and completely clueless. I have no idea what makes me happy or who I am. I feel completely uninteresting. And I am not at all confident.

Thus, doing what I have been doing, doesn't work. It's time to try something new.

What can I confidently say makes me happy? I am going to start small. I need to stop being afraid I will turn out to be something I have been striving not to be. I realize now, being true is better than being false and unhappy. So,

On working out: I <3 endorphins. I need them, I crave them. I love to run and it makes me feel good, especially when I increase my endurance. I get runners high and feel peaceful, in the zone. I like feeling in shape. I like abs and I like bones. However, I also love junk food. Peanut butter with chocolate and anything cookies n' cream themed is heavenly. I can eat a whole bag of cheese doodles.

On books: Entertainment is key. Some thoughtful books keep me interested, others don't. I will never enjoy respected, classic writers like Jane Austen or Charles Dickens. I like darker authors. Give me Fitzgerald, give me Salinger, give me modern day Burroughs or Palahniuk. I also read "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell" faster than all books written by the aforementioned authors.

On grades: They prove nothing. I achieved amazing grades. I worked really hard. Stress was involved in every assignment I was given- even assignments not worthy of stress. I retained nothing. The grades I achieved were for other people.

On music: I love music. I love knowing bands that aren't famous but I do listen to my fair share of bands/artists that are well-known and may even be considered sell-outs or pop. The song "Party in the USA" by Miley Cyrus makes me happy. Then again, so does "Two" by the Antlers.

A lot of this stuff has been hard to admit, to other people, to myself. I fear judgment. But I'm putting all this out there now. Liking Miley Cyrus doesn't make me a bad person, it makes me human. And I want to be a confident human. So, to start, I am going to be confident that I am human. Being human, I matter, literally. So don't cut me in line. Because I am standing there, confident in place, waiting to be acknowledged as a living person, who runs against herself, likes junkfood, is unimpressed by academics, and is smiling either because "Party in the USA" or "Two" is stuck in her head.