pot and kettle...

I find it ironic and somewhat painful that I give to others the advice I have so much difficulty taking myself. I always feel like a hypocrite. It doesn't make the advice any less true. Yet it also doesn't make it any less difficult to believe it myself.

I hate conflict. I hate confrontation. I'm not good at it. Can't cope with it well. I don't know what it is exactly that makes me avoid it at every opportunity. Which makes me wonder if that wasn't a factor in me moving away from home in the first place. The passive avoidance of conflict. Of confrontation. Because it's easier to deal with things when there's a bit of distance.

It hurts to see my low self esteem reflected in others close to me. I can see in my brother the same kind of self-inflicted emotional torment that I always manage to put myself through. The same feelings of worthlessness. Of contempt. Of anguish. The same fears of not being good enough. Of being a failure. Of losing at life.

Angsty? Yeah. Some of us don't outgrow it, I guess.

I'm trying to be what my brother always was for me. My cheerleader. My supporter. The one who always made me laugh when I was down. The one who always dragged me out of the shadows and into the light.

Yet at the same time, there's a little voice mocking me, deep inside. Pot and kettle, it whispers quietly, snickering with gleeful malice as it disparages my efforts. Who am I to offer any advice on self esteem? I, who have about as much sense of self worth as a dried up piece of cat turd left outside the litterbox?

I don't know. I've never known. But I'll be damned if I let my little brother throw his life away. He deserves better than a life spent believing himself an utter failure, because he's not one.

And maybe, just maybe, neither am I.