Crabby

Feeling 33

I've been trying to focus on being more positive these days leading up to my birthday, as one of the things I wanted to hopefully gain out of "Feeling 33" was to become a little bit better. Yet of course, today feels like I've morphed into the forgotten eight dwarf, Crabby. Before I can stop them, the nastiest replies have slipped from my mouth...my filter is gone - the one that reminds you, "you can't say that out loud." And I'm "throwing so much shade" it's like I'm a celebrity at an awards event.

Unfortunately, feeling like Grumpy's long lost cousin makes me feel less like reading uplifting books, learning new skills, or being creative, and more like sitting in a corner, sulking, because I don't have any peanut M&M's in which to drown my sorrows/annoyances/petty frustrations. So, there goes my project on "working on myself"...

That's how my mind tends to work - black or white, all or nothing. At one time it served its purpose and helped me cope, but it's not a very fun way of living anymore. I suppose this day of crabbiness (hopefully it's only a day...) is a good reminder that I am human. Perfection doesn't exist in the sense that I'm never not going to have bad days. I'm going to make mistakes, be in bad moods, and take more than a few steps backwards every time I make progress. It's all part of this journey of life. Thirty-three years I've been with myself, and I'm still learning how to accept myself, "wrinkles and all."

My sister-in-law has the most amazing blog, and in her post for the New Year she talked about how we now live in a very Instagram world - you know, where everything is perfectly filtered even when there's #nofilter? And for many of us (although we feel like the minority), we definitely don't have our lives as together as it appears that other people do. But as messy and imperfect as real life is, there's also something so wonderful about how perfectly imperfect it is. It's all a part of the same system - "can't appreciate light without the darkness", "ships in the harbor are safe, but that's not what ships are built for", "trees that have to fight the elements grown up stronger", all of that stuff people tell us. It's true - it's true and it sucks, but it's also great.

There's a great part in the film "Silver Linings Playbook" when Jennifer Lawrence's character talks about her past and her flaws. She says, "There will always be a part of me that is sloppy and dirty, but I like that, just like all the other parts of myself. I can forgive."

So, although I didn't add "be more accepting and kind towards myself" to my list of ideas for Feeling 33, it squeezed its way into my life on its own. I'm human. I make mistakes. I have bad days, weeks, months. But I can forgive myself when I mess up, and keep trying.