Change

I've been thinking a lot about change recently - though to say that this is a new thought is untrue. I've thought about change for a very long time. Most of my life, in fact. I've never been overly pleased with myself, though when I was younger that was a much more subconscious thought. I was never popular, or strong, or even very fast. I was that one kid who a lot of people knew, but not many people wanted to be around. The ones who did were a bit weird and nerdy, but they didn't all stay that way. I saw a lot of kids go from being the kind of person I was, to the popular kid that I could never be. And I never really understood how that happened, and although I never would have admitted it, I really wanted to know.

Part of the problem was probably that I was angry. I was very quick to anger, and even quicker to throw a punch, though I definitely didn't have the capability to win a fight. But fights were kind of how I started to learn things about me. I might not have been fast, but I did have a good eye. There was a time that a kid in elementary school brandished a knife at me - plastic, admittedly, but still terrifying to little seven year old me - and when he swung it at me, I saw how his arm was moving, and was able to not only dodge the swing, but take the knife out of his hand mid-swing. I didn't know what to do with it after that, though, so I dropped it and ran. Which was when I learned how to be fast.

There were a lot of angry kids when I was little, though. Most of them just didn't resort to violence when they got angry. Most of the screamed, or cried, or told lies. And as they got older, they learned that those things didn't work, and they learned to forgive. And so did I. Sort of. But the problem for me was that I didn't just get angry at other people. I got angry at me, too. I'd make mistakes, and I'd get pissed off at me, and I only knew violence as a solution. So I would punch walls, or trees, or other people.

I needed somewhere to focus my anger, which is why my Dad decided to put me into martial arts. It was violent, sure. But it was controlled. And I learned how to use my anger, to focus it in such a way to better myself. I learned to punch bags instead of people. Although, admittedly, I often pictured the faces of people who annoyed me on those bags - but that improved my aim, so I took it in stride. And for a long time, that was the end of it.

But it's been a long time since I was an active martial artist. I remember a lot, and I'm a lot better at controlling my anger because of it. But lately I've been getting angry again. At me, specifically. And I think about how in the past I used that anger to better myself. At least once I was pointed in the right direction.

I know the right directions to point myself in nowadays. And I know how to control my anger. Which, interestingly, in a way, is the problem. My anger with myself is still frequent, but it's not as long lasting. It makes me focus on what is making me angry about myself, but not long enough for any of the changes I try to make to take hold. Things like eating better, for a day at most.

So I've been trying to find new motivations for change. And in the past couple months, I've found myself focusing on a new area of my life. One that, while I was never happy about it, I never really bothered to do something about. I don't know if it's really going to change anything, honestly. And it probably doesn't seem like much to people on the outside. But it's a really weird and surprising change for me, and one that I want to follow through. Because it feels like the first change that can be the basis for something in a long time. The first change that really says "This is something that takes time and commitment, so if I follow through with it, I can't really turn back."

Kinda weird how wanting to change your appearance can do that.