As highly sensitive people who grow up feeling like outsiders, looking-in, we can often spend years looking outside ourselves for love and approval.
If we can only achieve what we’ve been told is important — whether it’s fame or money or awards — we can fill the empty hole that is inside us.
But then, we get it, and it doesn’t.
This quote by the writer Kazuo Ishiguro from his book When We Were Orphans really resonated with how I have been feeling:
“All I know is that I’ve wasted all these years looking for something, a sort of trophy I’d get only if I really, really did enough to deserve it. But I don’t want it anymore, I want something else now, something warm and sheltering, something I can turn to, regardless of what I do, regardless of who I become. Something that will just be there, always, like tomorrow’s sky. That’s what I want now, and I think it’s what you should want too. But it will be too late soon. We’ll become too set to change. If we don’t take our chance now, another may never come for either of us.”
This also reminded me of fellow highly sensitive writer Grace Kerina talking about how she was “Built for Depth, Not Speed” (which I talk about in this post.) That’s something I feel in my bones too, that I am built for depth and not speed. And that I have wasted years trying to get that metaphorical trophy, that validation.
And now, I no longer want it.
Now, I want something that will always be there, like tomorrow’s sky.
Beautifully said, Ritu! I have yearned for validation too – but how do you measure it in other than worldly terms? This is what I am currently struggling with, and I go through cycles/spirals of it – so your post has resonated with me in turn. I visited a friends house the other day for the first time, and I could feel I was in a change phase – but it also felt fine, because I’ve learned that you have to go with the flow of these cycles and come through when your spirit is ready. Cheers, Ritu.
Thank you, Lynne! I am glad that it resonated. I know what you mean about the spiral/cycle. I come to the same issue again and again at different times. I guess it’s like peeling the layers of an onion — there’s another layer inside. It can be hard when we are struggling with it. But it sounds like you are in the space of seeing all these different parts inside you from a different perspective. Take good care. It’s a challenging time and things are hard right now.