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The MamaPop writers are all participating in this writing exercise that’s been making its way around the interwebs. I’d credit the originator of this exercise if I could figure out who it was, but I can’t, so I’m going to go ahead and credit Tom Selleck. Thanks, Tom! The full list of prompts will be at the end of this post if you wish to play along.

Day 01: Something you hate about yourself.

Funnily enough, I hate that I hate things about myself.

Well, that might not be the best description.

See, this whole debacle with the economy and the husband not being able to get an electrical engineering job sort of forced me to confront some of these feelings. I remember very clearly rocking the baby to sleep one night when he was still very small and telling him all the things that his dad and I were going to do. “We’re going to finish college and we’re going to get good jobs and we’re going to buy a nice house and have enough money to do the things that we want to do. And MAYBE we’ll get a puppy!”

Having the baby at a somewhat young age and in less than ideal circumstances lit a fire under our butts to be more determined about our future and do right by our kid. Not in any kind of material sense, but just to do everything that we could to make sure that his needs were met and that he wouldn’t be denied too much because he had unprepared parents. We faced a LOT of criticism for having the baby and absorbed many accusations/insinuations that we were cheating him out of a secure life because so much of how we came to be parents did not look good on paper. So we sort of set out to prove everyone wrong, I guess.

So I finished college. I got a job. I worked my butt off to get some promotions so that I could make more money so that I could buy our house. I killed myself through a graduate program so that I could theoretically be more marketable. And the husband finished college. And we pushed and pushed and pushed ahead, our sights always on Someday when things were going to be the way that they were supposed to.

In the meantime, I never considered, or never really believed, that our lives were pretty good, day in and day out. I can see that I was often pushing happiness away because I was mistaking it for complacency and never figured out how to work toward a goal in the future without ignoring my life in the present.

I was telling a confidant a few weeks ago that after a big heart-to-heart with the husband, I realized that I wanted to stop trying to dismiss what I have in favor of something that I perceive as better because none of that is real. My family is what’s real. And I don’t care if we’re a family in a cardboard box in an alley, just as long as we’re together and present every moment that we can be.

I have to remind myself of this a lot. I’m an all-or-nothing perfectionist, which sometimes results in some pretty spectacular things, but most of the time means that I’m disowning who I am because I’m not living up to some arbitrary ideal that I’ve set for myself.

Day 01 Something you hate about yourself.
Day 02 Something you love about yourself.
Day 03 Something you have to forgive yourself for.
Day 04 Something you have to forgive someone for.
Day 05 Something you hope to do in your life.
Day 06 Something you hope you never have to do.
Day 07 Someone who has made your life worth living for.
Day 08 Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit.
Day 09 Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.
Day 10 Someone you need to let go, or wish you didn’t know.
Day 11 Something people seem to compliment you the most on.
Day 12 Something you never get compliments on.
Day 13 A band or artist that has gotten you through some tough ass days. (write a letter.)
Day 14 A hero that has let you down. (letter)
Day 15 Something or someone you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it.
Day 16 Someone or something you definitely could live without.
Day 17 A book you’ve read that changed your views on something.
Day 18 Your views on gay marriage.
Day 19 What do you think of religion? Or what do you think of politics?
Day 20 Your views on drugs and alcohol.
Day 21 (scenario) Your best friend is in a car accident and you two got into a fight an hour before. What do you do?
Day 22 Something you wish you hadn’t done in your life.
Day 23 Something you wish you had done in your life.
Day 24 Make a playlist to someone, and explain why you chose all the songs. (Just post the titles and artists and letter)
Day 25 The reason you believe you’re still alive today.
Day 26 Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why?
Day 27 What’s the best thing going for you right now?
Day 28 What if you were pregnant or got someone pregnant, what would you do?
Day 29 Something you hope to change about yourself. And why.
Day 30 A letter to yourself, tell yourself EVERYTHING you love about yourself

This entry was posted on Monday, October 11th, 2010 at 3:52 pm and is filed under truth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.