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My whole childhood/teen years I was told many things, such as the following (with the best of intentions); "Oh, you're a great drawer, very artistic!" "You should be a designer!" "You're a good student, you could do [insert higher education purpose here]" "You're not even trying!" "You can do anything!" Which was great. Except inherent talent didn't do shit when I didn't have the push to improve, to excel, to better myself. People assumed I was doing well and left me to it. Well, instead of excelling, getting great at everything, I slacked. Got lazy. I did things to benefit myself in the moment instead of thinking ahead. I was a child, you don't think of your future when you're still in school. Ain't nobody got time for that! I learnt things for long enough to pass the test on them, then promptly forgot them - and that's disregarding the fact that sitting in a class or reading wikipedia is not my way of learning at all. Once I hit high school, and hormones, I slowly mentally slipped into the spiral of "oh well, I can't do anything well enough to make my mark on the world. I'm 15, I should know what I want to do with the rest of my life by now; like every other person in my age group planning the rest of their schooling lives and possibly the rest of their whole life. Having no plan, I gave up. I never really thought ahead to the rest of my life because for a long while I never thought I would actually make it to adulthood. I'm 22 now. There's no way I thought I was going to make it this far. I doubted every move I took, and was constantly strangled by self hatred, doubt, loathing, and the wish to be anyone else. As well as a healthy dose of, "Oh well, this is it, I'll start getting used to it now." Screw you subconscious. Looking back now I was probably suffering some variation of Depression or Anxiety but people just thought I was different; and instead of being offended I took that and wove it into my self-image. Tried to control the darkness. (We all know how that ended, hey Gollum?) (Shut up, Lord of The Rings is on TV.) Anyway, I did make it through school and did try to use some of my natural talent to shape my life, even if I had no idea of where I was actually going. Picking a vocation on a whim is great and all, but going straight from high school to trade school pretty much just extended high school for me, although the skills did sink in a bit more because I was taught as I participated; learning web design while typing the code myself; learning to drive the Adobe suite while I clicked through procedures as the teacher did. Again I excelled and got the "You don't even have to try" treatment, so again I stopped trying. relied too much on my basic instinct. Having no clear picture of where I wanted these skills to take me left me just doing things because they were in the course and had to be completed; and I was spending too much of my parent's (and later my own) money on a class so I had to complete it. Basically, the idea of making a living drawing silly pictures and making web apps was a trendy idea at the time and I was going with the flow, thinking it would be a future-proof way of utilising my natural creative instincts. {insert childish raspberry noise here.} Fast forward a few years after a failed attempt at freelancing, attempting to juggle freelancing with casual waitress work, then having hospitality slowly creep into my life like an insidious parasite until it was all consuming, fighting back and slowly taking back some of my life, mixed with news of people my age going onto success and great things; here I am, typing this, feeling a tad empty and achivement-less. I've just fought back from my latest dark period, remembering that I am happy with who I am and I just need to learn how to improve; and it doesn't matter how long it takes me. I am a continuing member of The Rebellion, and while I had some successes in my last few challenges learning the basics of diet and exercise, I also lacked a clear mission to aim for - an ongoing problem of mine it seems. Now after my latest emotional crash I’ve come back to re-direct my life before it sails merrily down Shit Creek. I don’t want to count calories, I don’t want to lift mountains. I want to be comfortable just being. I have a battle log, an epic quest; I can comfortably say I have a plan. My name is Tegan. (But you can call me Teagarden. Or Tea, if you’re the nicknaming kind). I love fantasy. Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, zombies, magical creatures. I love craft. Crochet, sculpting, blogging. Many other things. I love gaming. PS3s and any game tolerant enough to support the Macintosh computer. I love coffee. And Tea. I love food. I find life both exciting and depressing. I struggle to find a work/life, and happy/serious balance. I will have the skills needed to take on any challenge life throws at me. I will be physically fit enough to enjoy life without pause. I will use my skills for good; helping people, and spending time doing things I love to do. I will have a way to sustain my life doing a job that I enjoy going to. I will get out of bed each and every day with a purpose. I will fail. But I will get back up. Again, and again. I will die happy.