what's your biggest fear?

i asked j today, while we were chatting. he told me his biggest fear, then he asked me. so i told him.

i don't want to end up like my mom.

she hates her job. she can smile and laugh with someone and rip them to pieces as soon as she gets home. she complains all the time. she's insincere. she can't love anyone. she's a horrible listener. she doesn't have a good head on her shoulders. she's a bad mother. she's barely a mother. she's overly judgmental. she holds grudges forever. she never forgets the slightest thing people mess up on. she's hypocritical. she's just an all around unpleasant person.

and the scary thing is, i see that in myself sometimes. 

i complain a lot. so much, in fact, that sometimes i find it hard to see the positive things in life. ("what positive things?" i half-laughed in my mind.) i don't listen to people at times. i tune them out unless i think they're worth my time. i hold things against people. it takes me a while to get over stuff. i'm a hypocrite. ("but aren't we all, to some extent?" i'm wondering. "not the best of us," i decide.) i'm impulsive. logic fails me at times. in fact, i was told once that i've got a reality so far from this one that it's mind boggling.

so after i told him (not all of that, but basically some of it), he asked me what kind of person i wanted to be.

i said i want to be a good listener, warm and caring. i said i want to be a lady who's a good person all the time, not just on the weekends. what i didn't say is that the reason i keep telling people i don't want to have children is because i know what having a bad mother is like and i'd hate to be classified or thought of as such. what i didn't say is that i want children and a family. i want to marry someone that i love so deeply that if (heaven forbid!) they died before me, the thought of marrying another person would be so far from me that even such a suggestion would sicken me.

he said he understood. he said he knew what i mean because i am like that. he said i'm too nice, that i have a cute personality. he thinks i'm a good person.

and i wish i could see that. i wish i was the kind of person who could see good things about herself. i wish i would stop wishing so much and make things happen.

most of all, i wish i wasn't so selfish. if i could apologize to his girlfriend right now, i would. i've spent the last few days hating her guts because she doesn't appreciate what she has and wishing they would break up. if i had spent more time thinking, i would've realized how much he loves her and how bad that would hurt him. no matter how much i dislike her, she makes him happy. and i couldn't ask for more than that.

maybe my biggest fear is that i'll be an ugly person, inside and out.

you know, that's probably it.

honestly.