I believe there are people in the world who root for everyone around them without feeling fear. These people see others succeeding and don’t feel like they need to do more. They don’t live in fear that they will eventually be called out for faking their entire lives.
I am not one of those people.
I am sure that someone much better at my job, hobbies, and life will come along and declare me a faker. This Much Better Katie will then force me out of my life. I will have to give up my cats, my make-up ( not that MBK needs it, she has better make-up and cleans her brushes more regularly than I do), my books, and my favorite soft blankets to go live in a shoe.
Somehow, anyone finding out I am faking it all means I will lose it all. My brain tells me that I am living on a very tippy edge. One wrong move and someone will find out I am a false person. That will be it for me. I will have to give my life up so someone real can take my place, return myself to the dollar store where I will live among all the other knock-off people. I will get fake cats, cheap make-up that gives me a rash, cardboard books, and a plastic picnic table to use as a blanket.
I also know that everyone feels like this. No one has any idea what they are doing. Everyone is faking all of the time.
We are doing our best and making it up as we go. So, why don’t we say it more? Why don’t we talk about how much we are faking or the ways in which we are guessing at life?
Would it take some of the power out of this fear I have, the power out of the fear I am sure others have if we talk about it? We’re all doing our best not to get caught faking it. We’re all trying not to get thrown into the bargain bin we forget everyone has the same fear; what if someone sees the real me? There is so much power in this feeling I almost deleted this article.
It didn’t feel interesting. It felt messy. It felt too human.
That’s what I am, though, more often than anything else: uninteresting, messy, and human. I try to be anything but these things, and it is exhausting. I am exhausted. Faking is exhausting. Is anyone else just really tired of faking things all of the time? I would like to stop.
I would like to start being uninteresting, and messy, and human instead. I would like to hide under my blankets and cats and be real: uninteresting, messy, and human. I would like to admit that I have no idea what I am doing ever. That I would rather run away than face anything. I would like to acknowledge that I am shocked anytime I get positive feedback from my job. I always go into it with panic. I think they should have hired someone else because I think I am going to fail them. I have been chasing after an idea of perfection my whole life. Perfection is such a seductive idea; if I push hard enough, if I do enough, I will become a person everyone likes, I will become the best.
When I try and chase the idea of perfection, when I try and fake it, I am also pushing people away because I see them as my competition. Not because they are my competition but because I see them as better than I am. I see them as being in the way. I demonize those around me because I am demonizing myself. The ‘what if they find out I’m not good enough’ story runs so deep that I give everyone a made-up version of me.
When I am not afraid that MBK is coming for me, I can support my people. I like this version of myself much better. Surprisingly, so does everyone else. I say surprisingly because I am always surprised when I show people who I am, and they still want to be around me.
There are good parts of the real me. I show up more. I am more able to quiet the voices in my head telling me no one wants to be around me, which causes me to bail on people. I am consistently the friend who shows up and can show up for herself. Still, I am shocked that people want to be around me. I am shocked I want to be around me and that I am succeeding. It is hard to admit that a ‘more perfect version’ of myself would not be better, that the more uninteresting, messy, human version is the better version of me.
When I am not faking anything, when I am just being, there are still people who want to be around me. I even want to be around me! I can know this, I can type this, and I can still very often struggle at doing this. I am a very human person. Very human people are uninteresting, messy, and imperfect. This is my favorite and scariest version of myself.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Steve Johnson on Unsplash ID: blue, red, and white paint streaks on a canvas