Will You Face It?

Over this holiday/isolation my family have taken to playing a number of games. I have discovered in this time that I, like most, do not like to lose. Having not been a part of organized competition until the age of 15 I have some strange feelings about it all. My oldest and youngest brothers however are very competitive. They love to compete and hate to lose. 

I was a dancer for 10 years and was never in the competitive part of it. I'm an artist and writer,  needless to say I don't have much of a competitive spirit. Of course there are parts of life that are overtly competition based, I've simply avoided them at all costs. 

Competition is somewhat of an estranged concept to me. My life for the most part has lacked  it and I've never felt the need to seek it out. Even at 15 when I joined my high school softball team I didn't much mind the winning or losing. Given we didn't win a single game until my senior year, I still was more in it for the friendship and the game itself was enjoyable to me. 

In my life competition has been about beauty and survival, not simply games. Still competition is something that feels ugly to me. Maybe I only have negative emotions attached to the concept, still I think there's more to it. If you live your formative years without truly engaging in a normal factor of life that tends to have some sort of lasting effect. 

I don't have a competitive spirit however I struggle greatly with comparison. So when I lose, whether that's a game or something of great importance, it tends to insight ugly emotion. When I lose it's not other people that are at fault in my head, no I am. It has a way of feeding the fire of self loathing. I never went through and learned the lessons that come with competitive failure. I avoided them, more acutely the pain it caused. 

It's not truly the competition or even the losing that causes a whirlwind of turmoil. It's the pain that accompanies it all. Most problems in life come down to two things, fear and pain. You have to learn to deal with them and we all develop coping mechanisms. Some work and are externally helpful but most that I've experienced have been truly terminal. An avoidance of pain does not negate its existence. 

Fear and pain are at the root of all my internal issues. When it really comes down to it, you have two choices. Either you can run from the pain and fear or you can choose to face it. Facing it is the road less traveled by myself. But in this time, this season, I have nowhere to run or hide, I simply have to stand and face it. 

It has been one of the most growing and trying times for me. And if you know or were to know my story in its entirety you might find that to be somewhat surprising. I've lived much life in these 19 years and lived things that some will never encounter. I hope you never have to walk through some of what I have. I hope you can take the picture I've painted and make something of it. I hope what I've said will strike a desire in you to also stand and face it.