To care or not to care, that is the question

I have been battling this thought a lot lately... Even when starting this blog, I was worried that I was going to become too vulnerable and considered making it a private site of personal thoughts for myself (this is coming from a girl that has made her sister swear that if tragedy ever struck early she would immediately erase her google history, THEN call 911). I knew if I let people read this, I would be criticized for my thoughts, ridiculed about my writing style and worse of all... be judged. I am extremely indecisive when trying to figure out if I should care more about what people think or give a shit less. My first real experience battling this concern came at age 9; I was riding around in my sick huffy bike when the boy down the street came over to talk to me, I never felt completely comfortable on this 2 wheeled contraption, not sure why but I thought I peddled weird and was pretty insecure about it. I thought about showing him my "no hands" skills but instead decided to stop abruptly; my hands became so sweaty from the anxiety of making sure I was acting “normal and cute” that they slipped off the handle bars and I went face first into the gravel. Not only did I scrape my favorite oversized NKOTB pin and rip up my nice new white jacket, I did worse, I bruised my ego. It went full circle though; when I was 12, I stuffed my bra and forced the same boy to kiss me in front of my garage during a game of flash light tag. He lives with his boyfriend now, about 45 miles north of home. Boy, I showed him.

So anyways, what is the “what you think compared to what others think” ratio when judging your own personal character? I hear a lot of people say that it only matters what you think about yourself, yet I think I would feel pretty shitty if I knew others thought I was terrible person and made voodoo dolls out of spite of me. But I also have always been one to go against the grain and I’ve never settled for less than what I thought to be pretty awesome. So, a person in my position, I assume, should think more about what I think than what others think. Unfortunately I am a thinking being, a thinking being that thinks way to much. But I think I am going to make a conscious effort to think more of my thoughts and less of others. On a side note (old habits die hard) please don’t tell my old neighbor I stuffed my bra that day. I still believes he thinks I grew a cup size in under 8 hours.