Confidence

I remember a line from Shrek about how Ogres are like onions. And I always felt like an Ogre. Not because I am big, or because I might have a foul odor after eating pizza from Dominoes, but because there were so many layers about me.

You see, there is this boy. He’s a mixture of all sorts of things. He’s strong, good looking, confident, charming. And he’s a lie. Or, perhaps it’s more fair to say he’s an actor. You’ll never know who he used to be, and at this point he can’t even remember. He used to be a boy, afraid of the world, but that’s all he remembers.

There was a trip he took, and this is where the first layer started. He’s afraid of a man on the trip, because he looks like a thug and inside the boy is scared. It’s irrational, but he can’t stop it from happening. But then, he does stop it from happening. He tells himself to become someone different, someone who’s unafraid of this man. He tells himself to become confident and funny. And the layer is created and the boy makes a friend.

Over the years, more layers are added and not all of them are good. He’s added resentment and disgust now. He has shame and anger as well. He’s become something he can’t recognize in the mirror. Gone is the boy, but gone also is the confidence. And he’s in a place he doesn’t want to be with a person he doesn’t want to be with. And just when he feels like he can’t breathe from these negative layers, freedom comes quickly and unexpectedly.

He’s laid wide open, his protection is gone and the boy is exposed to the harshness of the world. And he has to act now, or he’ll be lost and die from it.

And now, there’s me.

The boy is gone, the layers are gone. I no longer need them to protect me. Every one of those layers I have absorbed into myself, made them my own and they can brought up at any time. I’m no longer afraid of the world and the things that inhabit it. I’m above fear, it can no longer live inside my heart. And so, I put on my layer of choice today and I call it confidence. I dare you to try to take that away from me.

You can’t, you’re still a boy, hiding in his shell.