If found, please return to Sarah Marie Lacy, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.

No, seriously. Somewhere, between finishing the show and moving to PEI, my confidence seems to have misplaced itself temporarily. Maybe I forgot to pack it?

I was never exactly Janice Dickinson when it came to confidence, but I wasn’t hiding under the covers all day either. I was reasonably confident in my ability to do stuff and just confident within myself. Now though, it’s like everything is throwing me off.

I used to feel fairly secure about my looks – it wasn’t really a department where I really struggled in. I knew that I was attractive, that I wasn’t a double bagger*. Now all it takes is one platinum blonde in Abercrombie and Fitch and a rack the size of watermelons to make me want to run and hide.

*Double Bagger – technical term, referring to someone so ugly that it takes two paper bags over their head to hide the ugliness. You can thank my father for teaching it to me.

I used to not care. I used to look and say – well she’s not real, she’s made of plastic parts. She looks like she’s miserable and never happy with anything, probably least of all herself.

Maybe what I’m jealous of is that I want to feel the way she looks. I want to feel that fabulous and glamourous and attractive. Instead I feel like a big ball of blah in gray sweatpants with her hair in a ponytail. Uck.

Even just applying for jobs – I used to be so confident in my ability to get a job. This time round though, I’m nervous, edgy, unsure. I don’t know if I can get a job. Maybe I’m just useless. Maybe I have no useful skills whatsoever.

Do you know what the worst part of all this is?

I used to have answers. Not all the answers, in a know-it-all kind of way, but I used to know where I was going next. One thing fell apart, well then we’ll try the next. I used to know where I was headed.

Part of the problem is I spent so much time focussing on getting here, and defending my choice to be live here, that I never really let myself think about what I wanted once I got here. All of the things that I wanted seemed so impractical, so silly, so adolescent, that I didn’t even listen to them.

Things like wanting to work for myself and make all of my money from my art and web design – and definitely not get a job. Things like walking to the marina every day, painting outside, having a cozy, inspirational studio, spending lots of time with Jesse, cooking delicious foods, baking yummy things and pretty much living in my own little version of paradise.

I feel like that isn’t allowed. Like it’s too simplistic, too easy. I honestly don’t want a lot, but I feel like I’m not even supposed to want that. Life is supposed to be hard, and horrible. I’m supposed to want to lots of excitement and drama. I’m supposed to hate it here, according to everyone at home. I’m certainly not allowed to come here and just….be happy. And just create the life that I want without spending lots of time moaning and being miserable.

But what would happen if I did? What would happen if I just said “Oh screw you” and went off and did my own thing and was happy and enjoyed myself? What would happen?

Would the sky fall?

Would it trigger Armageddon? Would it bring 2012 one step closer?

Or would life go on? Would I make the money I need to live comfortably, and save up for travelling, and be quite content, doing exactly what I wanted, every single day?

What if I asked myself, at a scheduled time, every day, what I wanted? What I wanted to do? How would things change? How would I change?

And maybe that’s all I need to be happy right now – to let go of everyone else’s expectatios of me, and just focus on what I need to be happy, and on what I want to create in my new life.

See that? My new life. Not anyone else’s. Mine.

Oh, that feels good.