Thursday, November 4, 2010

"You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection." - Buddah

I have been loathing myself the last couple of weeks.  While I was away on vacation, I caught a bug and haven't worked out in two weeks.  I'm pretty discouraged, but I will say that Jo has remained in close contact and has continued to be a source of encouragement - who could ask for a better friend and trainer?

I have really struggled with putting this particular blog together and I'm not sure why.  I wonder a little if it is the on-going struggle that women have as a whole accepting that they are deserving of love and affection and more importantly that it's okay to love ourselves and treat ourselves with dignity and affection.

When did we learn to put ourselves in second place?  Who taught us that our feelings were not as important as someone else?  Why is it so hard for us to love ourselves?

I was always afraid of being alone.  That if I said the wrong thing or did the wrong thing I would be left by myself.  I defined myself with the company of others and was always devastated when they didn't value the relationship as much as I did.

When I was 18, I met this most amazing boy.  Handsome, popular, confident, he was everything that I thought I wanted - and incredibly, he seemed to be in to me too!  We crashed together and blew apart in epic proportions for two years.  When he moved away to Grand Cayman.  I followed him there with the idea that we would be together forever.  When I got there, he told me about his girlfriend on the island, the stewardess that would fly in every couple of weeks, and of all things, the fiancee he had back in Calgary! 

What happened next was really amazing.  I was scheduled to be on the island for 3 weeks.  I packed up my bags after five days and moved in with a bunch of guys that ran a local dive shop.  I wound up staying on the island for 5 months and turned into a completely different person.  I worked at the dive shop, got PADI certified and spent every day on the ocean.  Cathartic, perhaps, what I know is that one night, at 2am in the morning wheeling my luggage down a broken paved road,  wild pack dogs following me as I walked along the beach to my new home, I had taken ownership of me.    I wouldn't be defined by someone who didn't value me and I never would again. 

I confess it's not been an easy road and my occasional love/hate relationship with me has been challenging, but at 37 years old, 17 years after that life-defining moment I can proudly say that I have the voice to put myself first when I need to, I have the esteem to stand up for what I believe in, and I love myself enough to know that I can stand alone if I have to.

I'm just really glad I don't.

(as an aside, I ran into "that boy" two years later, the day after I got engaged to my now husband of 13 years.    As Garth Brooks once said "sometimes I thank God, for unanswered prayers.)