I/III — ÖZGÜVENİN AĞIRLIĞI
This essay was originally written in Turkish. If you read Turkish, I recommend reading the original.
I set off for Cardiff with three suitcases and three bags. I had barely said goodbye to my family when a wheel broke off the heaviest suitcase. There was nowhere to sit at the airport. I sat down by a wall, cried, got up and kept walking, dragging it along.
What else could I have done?
I was alone.
I couldn’t cry.
I couldn’t struggle.
I had to do it on my own.
It’s fine.
I am so strong.
I will succeed at everything.
I handle everything myself.
Do you know what happened?
I couldn’t.
I really struggled. Much more than I had expected. Over and over, I felt I hadn’t succeeded. I blamed myself.
I’m “Selin Aksoy”. How could I not do it? How could I “fail”?
Those who know me know that I’m actually a confident person. Because I have evidence from the past that I can trust myself. Things I’ve done before, things I know I’m good at, everything I’ve gathered about myself over the years…
But what if I’ve never done it before?
What if I don’t know what to do?
What if, this time, I really can’t?
And I learnt that it’s still okay.
But this time, it’s different.
Maybe I’ll make mistakes. Maybe I’ll fail more than once. Maybe I really won’t know what to do. But whatever happens, I won’t abandon myself halfway through.
If I need to, I’ll cry again, but I’ll still get up.
This time, not as the Selin who says “I have to succeed”, but as the Selin who admits she is struggling, who doesn’t deny herself the chance to try again, even if she fails once.
Stop.
Because I may not always be able to control the future or the outcome. No matter how hard I try, there may be things I can’t do. I may make the wrong decisions. I may need help. Sometimes, I may just want to run away.
Stop.
“I will? I might?”
“I can, I could?”
It’s okay. Because I’m still learning too. Isn’t truly trusting someone partly about being able to give them the “benefit of the doubt” when they need it?
When I trust myself?
Confidence. Faith in yourself?
“AXIOM: A proposition accepted as self-evident without requiring proof of its truth, serving as the fundamental basis for all other propositions, theories or rules.”
My confidence came from what I knew. I needed to know everything. Not knowing frightened me.
Now?
Can I handle it?
I don’t know.
But perhaps knowing that is no longer the whole point.
I’d like to try again in the future.
Not because I know I can do it, but because I know I can face it, whatever happens.
Not to learn what I don’t know, but to learn what it is I don’t know.
And as the things I don’t know multiply, I’m not actually losing myself.