Day 02 – I love happy me

Day 02 – Something you love about yourself.

I must confess I was tempted to skip today’s post. I don’t think there is anything in particular which I can say I ‘love’ about myself. As I said yesterday, the constant theme of never seeming to be enough (for anything) makes keeping a mental list of ‘I love dot dot dot about myself’ kind of hard. Rare additions to the list are crossed off quite soon after their arrival, rendering the list currently extinct.

So I thought maybe I could come at this post from another angle, not what I love about myself, but maybe what I should love, what others tell me to love. Well, that angle didn’t take long to die; compliments offend me ninety nine percent of the time. It always seems as if people have some sinister agenda underpinning their ‘kind’ words or that they are secretly mocking me; splitting sides and cracking up inside.

A new acquaintance recently opened my mind to concept which was previously alien to me. According to him, as people we should not feel the need to ‘fill the emptiness’ which exists in us; regardless of our perceived reasons for its existence. Instead we should realise the true nature of ourselves, of who we really are at the deepest level. Because that hole, that emptiness and depression that exists within us isn’t there because we have yet to find something or someone to fill it, rather it’s a space for us to grow into.

This idea of growing into ourselves regardless of life being full of misgivings and disappointments is a concept I’ve been toying with in my head for a few weeks now. This thoughtful background noise has just helped me realise what I do admire about myself.

Regardless of how torn or broken, how hopeless or drained I feel, I can still look outside of myself, my life, my ‘bubble world’ and find even the smallest things which inspire me. For now anyway.

When I find that source of inspiration, I let myself go, I give into it completely. A rare event suddenly becomes second nature; I let all my defences down and let whatever it is, in. Letting it move me, letting it change me, letting it touch me. Whatever it is which eventually inspires me, it becomes a firefly in my dark damp forest. I have no choice but to watch it, to follow it, to be fascinated by it, because it’s the only thing which has emerged out of the recent darkness. It might be the thing which saves me.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I secretly love the ‘ups and downs’; the periods of negativity which are then so sharply broken by fresh optimism. Why? Well even though the downs can be quite dark and make me sink to a place where it’s almost too hard to swim back up from, the ups are conversely bright and beautiful.

I love that renewed feeling; that ability to shake off all the demons and insecurities, all the anxieties and all the negativity, even if just for a while; to immerge from a surface and feel good once again.

I love happy me.