10: confidence

I'm going to a dinner/game night with people my age tonight. The group consists of a good majority of homeschoolers, so I decided to don a skirt (since the last couple times I've hung out with them I've worn jeans). Since it's a casual Saturday, until I leave, I decided to keep my pajama t-shirt on--a new red-neck kind of t-shirt, girly camoflauge. So I have a long maroon t-shirt over a long teal skirt, my hair is down, unbrushed but long and nicely wavy. And I'm like, "I look so much like a homeschooler right now." (Did I mention I AM a homeschooler? Or, was. But once a homeschooler, always a homeschooler, imo.) So I get on FB and write "Homeschool rocks!" Because I'm just feeling the homeschool pride today. :)

And then the dog starts barking out front and I go to bring her inside and I see a teenage girl, the daughter of one of the ladies at church, walking by. I've driven her around a few times when she's needed a ride. I go out to see her. She's dressed in a low-cut tanktop, totally soaking in the early hot sunshine of this deceptively summery March day, walking a friend's baby. And suddenly, I feel self-conscious.Because, oh yes, I look completely homeschoolerish when I could have been looking cool like her (minus the low-cut).

"Well, I'll let you go on with your walk. I'm making applesauce."

That and the kitchen towel in my hand clenched the look of domesticity. Maybe the applesauce comment made me look better because it made me look like I was maximizing this sunny day even though I was inside?

Ah, the beauty of insecurity. :)

I walked back into the kitchen and started thinking, "And you just wrote that homeschool rocks. And this is not confidence. Confidence would have been being completely comfortable in who you are in front of someone who is not the same as you." And I thought, "That's who you want to be, isn't it? You want to be a person who can be the homeschool-type, or the Mennonite type (which I'm not), and be able to talk with all other "types." (I've been inspired by Mennonite books and older women who are able to minister to others without being either judgemental or self-conscious.) You are you, and that's ok."

So what is confidence? It's being secure in who you are today (whether today I'm rocking the homeschool look or the skinny jean look or the hippie look) no matter who you run into. It's being secure in being you, unless of course you want to change who you are, which is fine, but confidence is not wanting to change who you are every time you run across someone who does not mirror yourself.

Ok, back to making applesauce.