The other day a friend challenged me to look at the thing(s) in my life that I keep carrying around and taking with me from place to place. While the conversation started by looking at such things like an old high school jersey or other keepsakes, I believe it was meant for me to look much deeper.  I had to think for a few days. What is it that I’m carrying around with me, what is it that I’m hanging onto, why is it that I’m hanging on to it and how is it serving me (or not serving me)?

Today on the Carousel of Happiness, I realized what it was that I’m dragging around with me.  It’s the sixth grader. If you know me well enough, you know who or what the sixth grader originally represented.  And at the time, it was meaningful to help me understand/comprehend what was happening in my life (I wasn’t fully understanding the weight I had lost at that time and the direction I was moving forward in). As time moved forward that sixth grader, although representing a loss, stayed with me and has been weighing me down.

When I look into the mirror I still the person who carried that sixth grader. I’m constantly running from him/her.  I’m deathly afraid of their return. A return to the life I’d hope to never live again.  My self-image is so very deeply rooted in this fucking sixth grader.  They are my inner critic, my bully, my every self negative thought and the very thing that keeps me from being my inner Rockstar.