ME!

I don't work on Fridays, and I'm starting to notice a pattern...I'm full of anxiety on my days off.  I'm not a workaholic and I don't wish I was at the office on Fridays.  But I do think that having this time off, alone, while everyone I know is at work is starting to fuck with me.  But I also know that I need to listen to this discomfort rather than distract myself from it.  Staying busy has always helped me feel like everything is okay.  I've always been busy.  Working a full-time job, and a part-time job, picking up odd jobs on the side, while in school full time.  This past year I've only worked one job, and the past ten months, I've only worked four days a week.  I have time and space for the first time in my life, and I don't know what to do with myself.   

Now that I have time, I'm sad to report that I've used that time to think, mostly about how much I loathe myself.  Last week was my fat body.  Today, my rosacea.  And that's just my looks.  I've also had time to think about how I don't make enough money, and how I should use this free time to get another job.  I've thought about how I lose control and slam doors and yell at loved ones when I don't know what else to do.  And my self-hatred for hurting loved ones will likely last a lifetime.  I'm not sure that I'll ever forgive myself for that.  

But then I come back around and have words with myself.  I remind myself that everyone's body is different, and that our narrow-minded society is the reason I think I should change.  That my best friend has acne and I think she's one of the most beautiful people in the world.  A lot of people think that.  And when I look at my closet door that cracked when I slammed it over and over again during an argument with my mother over the phone, I remember why I was mad.  I was mad that Donald Trump had been elected to be the president of the United States, the leader of the free world.  Even after he made fun of a disabled reporter.  Even after he claimed John McCain wasn't a war hero because he got captured.  Even after he admitted to sexually abusing vulnerable young women.  And that Christian women still voted for him in droves.  My mother voted for him.  I was upset.  I was enraged.  And while I do not condone rage, I understand where it stems from: control.  Or lack there of, actually.  I wanted to control the narrative.  I wanted to change the results.  I wanted to reach through the phone and shake my sweet, wonderful, loving, but clearly disillusioned mother and wake her up.  I wanted to make the world right.  My tactic was wrong, but my desire wasn't.  I'm a whole person.  I'm complicated.  I'm complex.  I love deeply.  I'm empathic.  I give a shit.  

And now it's time for me to change the narrative about me.  I am going to have to take great measures to correct what I view as valuable, worthy, beautiful, and loving.  I have to accept myself as human, and I have to learn to love my flaws just as I love the flaws in others.  When I put myself down for being fat, I put every other fat person down, too.  When I talk shit about my rosacea, I talk shit about every human that suffers from skin issues.  And when I shame myself for losing my shit over Trump's election, I discount all the humans that have suffered from his malignant policies.  Loving and accepting myself is a way of loving and accepting others.  And at this point in my life, loving others feels much more natural than loving myself.  

That said, Taylor Swift came out with a new song last night called ME!  The lyrics include the following lines: "I promise that you'll never find another like me.  Me. I'm the only one of me.  Baby, that's the fun of me.  You're the only one of you.  Baby, that's the fun of you.  And I promise that nobody's gonna love you like me."  This is a self-love anthem I can get behind.  I hope these catchy lyrics bury deep in my soul, so when I catch a glimpse of my flawed self, I'm reminded that my imperfections have helped shape who I am, and who knows...my imperfections may just lead to the greatest love story of my life.