Self-love. That sounds so nice! What do you think of when you hear those words? I think of candles. Nothing out there says I love me like a bathtub and some scented candles. It also makes me say “this water is getting cold and I want my bed and have no patience for baths” which is a whole other problem because baths are great probably.
Candles and positive affirmations aside, there is one piece I was totally missing and now I’m pissed. Self-love takes all sorts of time. As in, you can’t tell me how much time, and I have no idea, and some days I feel like I’ve been watering a plastic ficus tree or keeping time with a broken watch. “Hello!” I say to the self-love that I apparently have been building up. “Is this thing on?”.
Oh. It takes time, you say. Shit. That is disappointing to me.
You see, it was hard to take the first steps. I ended bad relationships. I came to terms with the fact that I was restricting calories and exercising as a way of controlling my size/life/self-worth. I stopped counting calories, which was annoying, and frustrating, but after a few weeks, I was proud. Look at me, on the road to self-love. But this road? It’s SUPER LONG. Along the way there are these little towns of self-love and then there are these other shitty towns of self-loathing where I start to stare at the map, absolutely sure I am off course.
What do you do? All I can figure for now is that on the good, positive days, I need to make a mental note that I am here and I’m in a good place. That way, when I’m in the place where I am obsessing over last night’s pizza and beer, the fact that I slept through yoga again, and am starting to second guess almost every choice I’ve ever made, I can say “Uh huh, gotcha dude. Now, if you wouldn’t mind recalling the way we felt, I dunno, 3 days ago, when we felt like a very special and sparkley babe…yes, let’s think about that”.
Anyone else? Seriously, if there was a pill I could take or a yoga pose that would just bring on the love, I would be there, and would tell you all about it. I suspect this is one of those “journeys”? I’m in the car, I’m liking the view out the window for the most part, but…are we there yet?!
mistakes by the lake 