Loving myself...

                                                                         -William Sloane Coffin

No list this week.

My heart is heavy this morning.  I had a fight with my mother.  The kind of fight where things you've been holding on to for a long time come spilling out and splatter all over your world and you're left to clean up the mess.  

I guess you could say that mothers and daughters do this.  I agree to an extent, but this runs a little deeper than that.  I've been holding on to things for a long, long time.  I do my best to forgive and forget, but I'm internalizing alot, and I'm coming to a point in my life where I don't want to do that anymore.  I want to change. 

I want to know that everything doesn't have to be perfect.  That the world won't unravel if I don't keep a tight grip on it.  That there is such a thing as freedom from the past.  I want to live.  I want to banish worry from my world and relax in the comfort that God is in control...not me.

I'm hoping that this can be the beginning of something new and better.  For as long as I can remember, I've been trying to fix things, things that aren't mine to fix.  The scars run deep, and it hurts, but I know that I have to let go.  I have to, before it seeps in and destroys me, and my marriage and everything that I hold dear. 

I have to tell the little girl inside me that it's not her fault.  She didn't do anything wrong.  She deserves to be happy.

My first instinct after a fight with anyone I love is to run to them, and try and mend it.  This time, I'm doing the very best I can to mend myself first.  I have to.  If I don't, then all I'm doing is what I've always done.  Nothing will change, and I'll find myself right back here again, and I don't want to come back to this place.  

I guess at this point, I'm not as mad at my mother, as I am determined to change my own perspective.  I know that our relationship will be okay.  We love each other too much for it not to be.

It's high time I become the woman I'm supposed to be.  

I know that within me is a woman, who possesses the best attributes of both her mother and her father, and some that are all hers.  She's kind, and confident.  She's real, and she doesn't pretend to be anything she's not.  She's not quick to anger, and she knows when to say no and how to say it assertively.  She loves herself first, so that she can love others to her full potential.  She adores her family and enjoys every day of her life.  She doesn't take things for granted, but she also doesn't take things too seriously.  She laughs alot.  

I'd like to be her friend and stop beating her up so much.  I'm also going to stop talking about myself in third person...it's starting to creep me out.  

In some ways, I'm already her.  In others, I have some work to do.  

I'm going to start by loving myself more.

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I'm sorry for such a serious post the day before a holiday.  I hope you all have plans to spend this weekend kicking off summer with friends and family, and that you find peace in remembering those who have passed before us.  I wish you sunny days and ice cold drinks, and most of all lots and lots of love.  

I'm off to spend a couple days visiting my Dad's old stomping ground.  It will be a mini version of our trip last year with just me and my sister and my dad.

Happy Memorial Day!

{photo credit:  JenniPenni}