Forgive Me: My voice is an Echo.

Record, Trina, record.

I love my job. The End. I dreaded looking for one, I hem-hawed around, panicked, and, somehow (and I'm pretty sure God was involved in this one), I've stumbled upon a Cave of Wonders and found myself at a terricic place. I like the work here, I'm (I think) good at it, and there's room for me to get involved creatively in the company, which is what I want.
I don't dread getting up in the morning; I look forward to coming to work. I can honestly say that for the duration of my school career, I woke up with dread every morning of my life. It was always stress and very little pleasure. People see me as panicked, stressed, too serious, too focused, too intense. But that's just not a complete picture of me. That's a picture of me in a school environment. And it's the worst version of me. It's the version of me that I HATE. I've been "enduring" school, waiting for my release so I could go out and BEGIN my life. (This is, of course, a completely incorrect way to look at the world, but that's the illogic of Trina in a school setting.) Now, freed of the stress I associated with school, I feel like I can grow. And that makes me happy.

The problem is, School Trina is the only version of myself I know anymore. I've been immersed in this world of stress for so long, I can barely find remnants of any other Trinas suffocating beneath the panic defense mechanisms. I'm still falling back on panic when something new comes along, instead of looking at challenges for what they are: challenges. It doesn't have to be stress, it can be exciting.

So with this "problem," I've found myself in the position of not knowing who I am. Generic? Yes. Cliche? Absolutely. My voice is an echo of so many others who set about "looking for themselves." But I simply do NOT want to be Panic Trina anymore. I want to be the "Real Trina" that's trying to immerge out of all this rubble. I hope I like me.

My first order of business is to "Forgive Me." Everyone tells me I'm too hard on myself. I am.
I'm okay. Whoever I turn out to be.