Painting my first room and Loving Myself
I'm tired. Last night I stayed up until about 2:30 a.m. so I didn't get much sleep. But I stayed up because I decided at 10:30 p.m. to paint my dining room and I painted the whole thing!!! It looks so cool, it's sort of a robin's egg blue, the official name being Rhythmic Blue. I did take pictures before, during and after but I don't know if I have the energy to go download the photos right now. Plus, the pictures will look much better when I've taken the blue painter tape off anyway and I haven't done that yet.
But so anyway though, now that I've started with the painting, and gotten a whole room painted by myself in not too long at all, I just want to make decisions regarding the rest of my walls and go get the paint! And I actually find myself really relaxed while I'm painting. I was playing my music and it's such an orderly procedure, and I get to make sure it's perfect and also see the change I'm making to the room, and I do a lot of thinking - not big thinking, just a lot of different things - it's nice. Very nice, and very relaxing. I was planning on taping my bathroom tonight because I'm painting it the same very very light green as was in my last bathroom and I have plenty of leftover paint from last year. So it's definitely the next room I'll paint and it won't take me long at all. But I think I'll wait until tomorrow so I can go to bed early tonight.
Yesterday I played hooky from work. I woke up when my mom called me in the morning but just barely, and managed to carry on a conversation with her and then reset my alarm as soon as I hung up. I woke up again when The German called and I fed the babies but was so sleepy still so decided that I would go in at noon so I could sleep for a couple more hours. And then when I finally woke up I just fucked around and really didn't want to do anything and just really really didn't want to get ready and go to work, and then I got a massive headache (and I've been getting headaches almost daily for the past two weeks when I normally hardly ever get them, and I've also noticed my eyes and particularly one eye really straining, especially when I'm outside and as a result, the paranoid part of me is worried that I have a brain tumor) so I didn't end up going to work at all.
But at 4:30 in the afternoon I decided that I had to do something productive since I was skipping work so I prettied myself up and went to World Market where I bought the cutest little tiny clock that I had eyed before and which was 50% off and also some wrapping paper on sale, then to Bed Bath & Beyond and bought a medium-sized oval mirror for my living room and used a 20% off coupon on that, and then I went to Home Depot and got the paint and one of those pre-packaged painter kits. I put the gallon of paint (which I have now discovered was WAY too much paint because I used probably only a third of the gallon last night) in my backpack and carried the rest of the stuff to the train. It's times like that when I actually wish that I had a car.
Oh, so part of my reason for telling about my playing hooky from work - after I got home from my little shopping trip and was cooling off on the couch, I for the first time went to DailyOM, recommended by CeeCi. And the first sentence from my horoscope there made my mouth drop open just a little: "You may feel a need to escape your usual routine today." Well shit, it was right on there! It's so interesting when horoscopes fit so perfectly sometimes.
From my seat reclining on the couch right now I'm looking down the hall and can see a little of my newly painted room, it looks just gorgeous! I just need to hang pictures now so it really feels complete and like home in there.
I'm at a complete loss for anything else to talk about. Oh - well I talked to MWFB last night for awhile and during the course of our conversation he was saying so many wonderful things about me and of course that made me feel wonderful!
[Here starts long conversation about self-confidence and loving myself - apparently I wasn't at a complete loss for anything to talk about! :) ]
But it was good for a slightly different reason than has been the case for most of my life up until now. Different because I didn't need him to say these things - I already know them now. For the first time in probably ever, I feel like I don't need 
to hear other people tell me that I'm wonderful. I know it - I know who I am, my flaws as well as my wonderful attributes. I know what I need to work on, and I know that I do work on things, and I know I'm so strong, and I know I'm very much the optimist, and I know so much more and also know that I'm still learning and growing and I'm happy with that - but so overall, I know who I am now, and I like me and love me and I think I'm pretty damn fabulous! :) And I love life and I'm so incredibly happy to be living life, and I really enjoy it. I love each day, even the hard ones. And I'm happy, really really happy! Happy just being me and breathing and seeing the blue sky and hearing music and talking to people and loving my friends and cuddling my kittens - I'm just happy with it all! I was thinking about this all a lot last night while painting and it was very interesting and a really wonderful realization.
I used to always need affirmation from outside sources in order to feel good about myself. And of course affirmation from someone would only last so long and then I'd be seeking out more affirmation, either from the same person or other people. My need for affirmation led me to do a lot of stupid things. So many situations flutter through my memory. I think I wanted to love myself and part of me thought I was great but the other part of me just didn't know and at times didn't believe it. It really sucks when you need other people to define who you are and give you confidence - it sucks because every other person out there has power then, and I had no power left for myself. It sucks because so much of my time and energy was spent in trying to define myself through others' eyes.
All of my college years and all of my law school years were spent doing this. And even after law school, and really up until about a year ago, probably more like eight months ago when I stopped drinking. But things have just been getting better and better since then. And I have to give some credit to The Meat as well, because back around the time that I stopped drinking he really stepped in as a friend and life mentor and so many of the lessons he taught me, as well as his belief in me and caring for me, especially since it came from him who I adore, respect, love and admire so completely, slowly showed me all I can do and all that I already am, and I started really being proud of myself and really loving who I am.
I'm not saying that I won't need boosts of confidence or affirmation now and then.
And I know I could possibly still be susceptible to falling backwards under certain circumstances, certain hormonal times, and also if I don't work on it. I feel almost like with regard to my self-confidence and loving myself, I'm standing on a bit of a precipice. So I know I'm not completely safe and I know I can still be fragile sometimes. But overall I feel like every day I'm loving myself more and more and what a completely amazing feeling that is! To not need someone to tell me that I'm pretty and a hot piece of ass :) , and tell me that I'm smart and strong and caring and wonderful and such a good person (well I'm currently having lack of confidence issues with regard to the smart thing so I still need affirmation and much more with regard to that - it's a whole other issue - but all the rest are all good!)
(Okay when I just wrote that last sentence I stopped and thought, "is that all that's good about me, that's it?! Maybe I'm not so great," - just an example of how I really do have to work on it and tell myself every day that I love who I am and list in my head a bunch of the great things that I love about myself and list reasons why I'm so strong and why I'm so proud of myself and how I'm improving daily - otherwise I might fall backwards. It's kind of hard work I guess. I'm still feeling my way through it all a bit.)
Well...that all kind of came out as a surprise! It's been on my mind but I didn't think it was ready to come out - but then I started writing and suddenly, twenty pages later here I am!! :)
Okay then, now it's time to get off towards bed! And before I go to sleep I'm going to again think of all the great things about me that make me love myself. It's still so new - these feelings of not necessarily needing to hear it from other people - that I'm kind of afraid of losing it so I want to work to hold onto it. I really really want to hold on to this feeling of loving myself - because it's really, really wonderful. I need to stay positive! And of course I'll never turn down affirmation from people who I love (okay I won't turn it down from anyone!), because it really does brighten my whole day to hear things like that!
