Why, though?

(originally posted at eclaircie.diaryland.com)

My life has never been very hard. I don't get it. I mean, sure I have the rough days, or even rough weeks from time to time, but it always seems like I don't have that much to worry about. I've always had decent health and succeeded in school and had good friends and I never went through a rebellious stage (well, any more than wearing that one skirt that my mother thought was too short that one day when I was 15 and that sort of thing) and my family's always been fairly together and...is it a normal thing to feel like everyone has more problems in life than you? It's normally the opposite, yes? Everyone thinks their problems are worse than anyone else's. Which makes sense because nobody understands how much it hurts to not make the high school musical when all of your friends did or how much it hurts to have him decide he doesn't love you anymore or how much it hurts to realize you're just not as funny or pretty or interesting as your sister. Nobody knows exactly how much it hurts but the person experiencing it. And yes, it makes sense, but I'm not like that.

Not that I don't have problems and hurts, but everyone else's always seem more complicated. Perhaps because I can't understand what's going on inside of them, and so my somewhat overactive imagination makes things worse than they really are for other people? It's hard to say. But I know I live a blessed life, and a simple life. And I wonder why...

And now I worry that this sounds like I'm trying to brag about my attitude on life or something. "Look at how optimistic I am! I think I have less problems than everyone else!" Or even worse: "Look how empathetic I am!" I'm always paranoid when making observations about myself that they'll turn out sounding conceited. Which makes sense because most observations of me reveal such an awesome person that it's hard not to sound full of myself.

And that would be me throwing in a sentence that is obviously meant to be taken light-heartedly after what was supposed to be serious discussion (though now that I look at it, even minutes after writing it, I'm hideously embarrassed with anything that was serious-like...and why am I so afraid of stuff like that?). I do that a lot. I think it's some sort of defensive strategy. Though I couldn't really tell you what I was defending against exactly.