Every New Year, I find myself super thankful for the year
that has just ended. Ever since I was a teenager, and my godfather died around
the New Year, I’ve made it a point to really reminisce, to really think on the
last twelve months. I think about the things that were great and then those
things that maybe weren’t so great. I think about the experiences I had and the
places I went, the arguments I engaged in and the times I bowed down to
apologize to end the bickering. I think, most especially, about myself in a
much more personal way.
Did I work out as much as I had planned for the year before?
Was I really sticking to my guns about eating organic, even when it was
financially straining? And more recently, was I doing everything I possibly
could for my child? Was I doing things right,
was I loved by many, and was I really living? Was I making an impact in the
best fashion I could as a “stay-at-home mom” and did I fully live up to the potential
that I know exists inside of me?
I find the New Year really refreshing because just like any
given Monday, the New Year is a fresh start. It’s the perfect time to really
sit back and evaluate all you’ve witnessed and decide if you want to continue
moving in the same direction. It’s a great time to ask yourself all the
important questions, realign your goals, and I mean, restarting your diet
wouldn’t kill you, right?
Every January, I set some “resolutions” but in all fairness,
I try to recreate pretty much the same list every year. And that’s not to say
that I find myself perfect by any stretch of the imagination. But maybe it’s
just that I’m unchanging when it comes to my personal goals. I want to be healthy, I want to be pleasant, I want
to be remembered for good things and a kind temperament, and I want to advocate
for people.
I hold my health to be an extremely high priority. And maybe
that’s something that you’ll laugh at but it just seems, in today’s world
especially, it’s just so much easier and more affordable to not take care of
yourself. Anyone who knows me knows that I am the ultimate food Nazi. I buy
nearly everything organic and I have a real issue with eating out. I do it,
because I like to maintain some semblance of socializing but in all honesty,
processed, store made and restaurant prepped food scare the absolute crap about of me. If you ever feel like
torturing yourself, just google some of the ingredients that are in your
favorite foods, drinks, or even your kid’s shampoo and you’ll see where I’m
coming from…
Anyone who knows me knows that I also have a strong distaste for working out. I mean, to be fair, I love yoga but that’s primarily because
you don’t have to be an athlete to partake in the practice. I also really
admire the meditation part of it. I mean, That
Crazy Kate, of course she needs to meditate, right?
But seriously? Working out is not my favorite activity. I was a very faithful gym attendant for the majority of my marriage (until
I got pregnant with my daughter) and I went religiously with my husband almost
every day. I can tell you all about the HIIT workouts I did, the Arnie
supersets, and the millions of squats that ate up literally my entire
afternoon. Once I started to see results, I actually started to mildly enjoy it
but listen to me, friends, I am physically active because I have to be. I just want to be healthy and I know there’s only two
ways to accomplish that: diet and exercise.
If exercise wasn’t something necessary for good health, I
would never do it. I won’t even lie
to you.
Have you ever been to a gym? Like a real gym that’s not one
of those 24 hour ones that’s made for surgeons and recluses who hate people? I’m
telling you, it’s not a comfortable situation. There are all these super fit
freaks of nature walking around in teeny, tiny VSX attire and then there’s
those “dude bros” who work out in packs and insist on yelling over their Beats
by Dre because for some unknown reason, they want everyone in the gym to hear
what they’re talking about. (It’s usually girls, by the way…) What was my least
favorite was when my husband and I would superset with machines that were on
opposite sides of the gym. I would get to my next machine too slowly and some
Palm Harbor Channing Tatum would pop in and say, “Can I squeeze in a set during
your rests?”
Yeah, working out is the best. Especially for a
non-athletic, former band kid with a petite Italian figure. It’s probably like,
my least favorite thing in the world to do besides pump my own gas.
Whatever it is you’re
scared of doing, do it. Make your mistakes; next year and forever. –Neil Gaiman
This brings me to another one of my yearly resolutions:
self-confidence. I have a really serious
issue with self-confidence. Although I would like to blame it all on my abusive
ex-boyfriend, that wouldn’t really be fair. There are a lot of individuals who
have contributed to this conundrum, and still continue to do so today, without
even knowing it. It also doesn’t help that I’m really super sensitive and
everything hurts my feelings. And for that, I would guess, I have to take part
of the blame.
One of my girlfriends from my old job recently posted
something really awesome about loving yourself, your flaws and all. And I can’t
help but wonder: why is it that people don’t love themselves? Is it that it’s
so much better being miserable and self-deprecating all the time? I mean, why
is this chronic ailment plaguing our society so hard?
I have a friend from way back when who I’ve just recently
reconnected with. To be honest, and she absolutely does not know this, but I was always uncomfortable around her
because of how absolutely gorgeous she is. I was actually super self-conscience
whenever I was around her because she is just that stunning. I mean, people would literally bump into me to get
to her and I’m not going to lie, it bothered me. And what’s even worse, is I couldn’t even hate her
because as beautiful as she is, her personality is even better. How is that
even fair?
I’ve always been one of those people that cleans up well.
But truth be told, I always feel cute until I leave my house and see all the
other gorgeous people around me. Maybe it’s also due in part because I’m the
little sister in my family and literally, people always raved over her. “She’s a genius, she’s so gorgeous, she’s a
brilliant musician, etc” and then there’s me. I was always cute enough and
talented enough but I just couldn’t measure up. And that’s okay, right? I’ve
got other talents to speak of. And my eyes are a bit more green.
I mean, honestly, I could go on and on about the lack of
self-esteem nonsense but I don’t want to bore you. And for the most part, isn’t
it something that most of us struggle with? We’re always our own worst critic.
And I’ve found that the outwardly most confident individuals are usually the
most insecure.
And as much as I struggle with this self-confidence bit, I
struggle even more with the issue of whether or not people like me. I know, I
know, it sounds so stupid! And like
my high school best friend pointed out to me, “there’s more to life than who
follows you on social media”. It sounded like she was trying to bring me back
down to earth in that moment and honestly, she probably was. But it took those
words for me to understand how ridiculous this issue is to even think about,
much less vent to someone else about.
One of my friends had a party this past weekend and I was
really somber to realize that I wasn’t invited for whatever reason. It’s just
yet another thing in my life that social media is ruining. Nothing like a
mid-morning scroll to get your self-esteem reeling, am I right?
And honestly, it’s not something I was mad about. It was just the brand of party that I would have loved
to attend. Someone I really like being celebrated for something really awesome?
Who wouldn’t want to go, you know?
But every moment more that I spent thinking about it, laying
in bed awake and worrying about what I did to this girl to make her not want to invite me to said party, was
literally chipping away at my sanity. I was running through our last few
interactions in my head, wondering if I said something off putting or
offensive. (I’ve been struggling with some emotional stuff as of late, post
baby hormones and all that jazz, and sometimes I don’t come across in the way I
mean to.) I laid in my bed, in the dark and stared at the ceiling, yelling
inside my head, “What did I do to her?! Why don’t people like me?!”
And you know, I’ve struggled with this for a long time. I’ve
experienced it at almost every school experience and every job I held. I always
characterized it as not being “the popular one on the playground” and I
remember one time I vented this to someone who I thought was my friend (and
maybe still is? Although we’ve since lost touch…) and she laughed right in my
face. Like I was crazy. Like it was the stupidest thing she had heard all day.
I had this type of run-in recently with two good friends
from high school and it drove me absolutely crazy. (I mean, I was even in one
of their weddings…) I don’t know what I did to these women or what I might have
said but one literally blocked me from Facebook and the other refused to accept
my invite to follow on Instagram. I know, friends, I know, like my high school bestie pointed out, none of these
things are important. But what did I do to her? Don’t I have a right to know so
that I don’t do it to anyone else?
The same high school bestie that gave me those sweet but
grounding words of wisdom mentioned that for one of them, maybe it was because
I was so joyful being pregnant and this particular woman wasn’t. Her experience
was different than mine and my old bestie thought that maybe seeing me having a
positive pregnancy and birthing journey just drove her nuts. But doesn’t that
seem a little unfair? We should be celebrating each other as women, right?
Loving each other even if we don’t agree?
The truth is, I’m a people pleaser. I want people to like me and I want to feel like I’m loved by others.
Maybe it’s seemingly unimportant to other people but life gets lonely. You have
to have a posse. And I don’t understand what it is about my personality that
makes people appear to not like me.
Moral of the Crazy:
So this year, I chose a very special New Year’s resolution because if I’m
honest, the inability to truly love oneself can be debilitating. I know that
this isn’t something that’s an easy fix; it certainly isn’t something that will
happen overnight, especially for me. But it’s something that I’m making a
conscious effort to work on it.
That, and to obviously stop cussing because my kid is just
way too smart. And I don’t particularly want her first real word to be the god awful f word…
But here’s the thing that I’m gradually coming to realize:
it’s all okay. So this friend of mine didn’t invite me to her party. It’s okay.
Does it mean I upset her? Does it mean she no longer considers me a friend?
Does it mean she just straight up didn’t want to invite me for whatever reason?
Honestly, probably not. Maybe she forgot, maybe there was a
number limit, or maybe she didn’t think I would come. And you know what? That’s okay. She doesn’t have to invite me. It’s not going to
make or break my life, right? All that should matter to me is that she enjoyed
herself and got what she wanted.
So these old friends of mine from high school who don’t want
to see my face, my blog, or my status updates on their timelines. That’s okay. It doesn’t mean they hate
me, it doesn’t mean I’ve done anything wrong, it doesn’t mean they’re trying to
make some silent statement. Maybe it’s just their own battle and you know what?
That’s on them. And if I’m causing any kind of friction in their lives, I
certainly don’t want to. So I should be happily deleted off the friend’s list.
Because who really cares, right? Like my old best friend
said, there’s more to life than social media.
The truth is that I have spent so much time trying to be someone else. And don’t misunderstand,
it’s not like I set out every morning to fabricate my story. I just have this
incessant, nagging feeling that I’m not enough. I hear criticism from a lot of
people, a lot of the time, and it leads me to think that I’m lacking in certain
areas. I need to be thinner, I need to be prettier, I need better fashion, I
need better friends, I need a more lucrative source of income (as I work from home,
when I want to), and I need to better discipline my child.
These things fall down upon me like fourteen elephants on my
chest and in those moments, it’s hard not to feel like a failure. But I’m
seeing more and more, on social media especially, that people, more
importantly, women like me, are embracing
their alleged flaws. They are loving themselves not in spite of “what’s wrong
with them” but because of it.
A dear, sweet friend of mine, also a fellow victim of
domestic violence, posted about embracing her true self this New Year. And it
really spoke to me because she said things like “I will never be less genuine,
less loving or less giving because society tells me too”. I guess that I’ve
never seen what I’m feeling every day in such profound words but I understand
it now. Yes, I’m emotional, yes, I get my feelings hurt, yes, I want the people
I root for and care about to like me and so what? I want good things and I want
a pretty world full of love, support and advocacy.
I went to social work school, y’all. So sue me.
I just want to live my best life, I want to be my best self,
and I don’t want to be so bothered by what I
think other people are thinking because none of it matters. We’re in America and I’m
pretty sure you’re still allowed to think for yourself, right? Everyone doesn’t
have to like me. And that doesn’t necessarily mean that I can’t turn the other
cheek and keep rooting for them. I’m not in the business of making enemies. It
just kind of seems like a waste of time to me.
And so in the spirit of letting things go and giving them up
to your higher power, in the spirit of loving every inch of yourself, post
baby, post high school, post bad break-up, in the spirit of rooting for each
other, come what may, I wish you all an extremely happy, vibrant, hopefully
lucrative New Year filled with life, love and happiness.
XOXO,
-Kate
I hope you realize
that every day is a fresh start for you. That every sunrise is a new chapter in
your life waiting to be written. –Juansen Dizon
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