Thank you to those of you who responded to my last post - I truly appreciate it. Okay, so I overreacted a little - I gave you a self-pitying earful when what I really meant to say was this: I want to be a better example to the people around me. I am aware that I am somewhat of an anamoly, being a religious Jew immersed in a secular world, and yet in public I often tend to behave like the "old me" would just because I know that my friends - and the people I meet - will be able to relate to that person more comfortably than they will to the "frum me." I do think its important to try and set an example for others, but at the heart of what I was feeling was that I am totally not being honest with myself or Hashem when I "play down" my Jewishness and act differently than I otherwise would, and I resolve to change this.
Ideally, I would be around more people that I actually want to emulate, and I hope that with Hashem's help this will be the case very soon.
So ends my mini-crisis. I have many more interesting things to talk about which are not so me-focused - can't wait to share them.

I guess I've been missing the point.

Sorry I haven't posted in ages. Unfortunately, I'm going to greet you with a slight self-debasing rant.
So basically, my self-esteem is someone shattered at the present moment due to a revelation (don't ask me why it took so long) that I have been completely misusing my time. (Obligatory background info: I'm a baalas teshuvah, but haven't quite solidified my place in an orthodox community because everyone I know and continue to meet is not frum, and I haven't quite found a synogogue or other such place where I've made a lot of frum friends. Blah blah blah.)
My family is fairly unsupportive of my observance, and my friends tolerate it but treat it like some strange quirky behavior or novelty - as if I only wear skirts and don't pick up my phone on Fridays in the same way that a child might decide to only wear pink and not want to go to school on Tuesdays. Basically, no one really gets it, but we've made our peace with each other, and I'm hoping to get to Israel to study soon so that I can learn from someone in real life and not just out of seforim, and be around other people who actually (gasp) know where I'm coming from and share my beliefs.
In the meantime, I continue to stick to my convictions. It's been really, really hard and at times, painful and lonely - I'm embarrassed to say that I have eaten many Shabbos dinners alone, either away at school or if I'm with my family, while they watch TV in the next room. In day-to-day life, I am alone - no one in my life really understands why I do the things I do. Strong girl, right? Manages to keep doing what she believes in even though she's completely isolated from anyone who agrees?
Not quite. Right now, I'm feeling like a complete and total failure - not just because I haven't yet "broken in" to the frum world (despite staring at obviously frum people on the subway and even in synogogue wishing we were friends) but because I haven't even had a positive influence on the people I love since becoming frum! My religiousness has benefited only myself; I haven't managed to uplift anyone around me - I've only made them scoff and assume that I was hit over the head with a sledgehammer by a religious cult-leader.
I don't know why this is - its not like I haven't tried. But the truth is, every time I go to articulate anything related to Torah or my spiritual life, words fail me - in part because I fear the inevitable judgment which will result. So instead of my being a positive Torah influence on my friends and family, my religiousness has become just a weird "thing I do," as opposed to the very obvious negative influence some friends have had on me, even as I became religious. The negative, counter-Torah influences are triumphing over my potential to teach others what I know. And that's why we are supposed to learn, isn't it? In order to teach?
So what's my purpose, as I hover between worlds? I'm not doing anything for anyone. In essence, I suck - but I've failed to realize it until now because I was so shamefully focused on the fact that I was growing and developing spiritually, albeit in a degree of isolation.
Did I mention I've been wasting my time?