Of Self Love

Today’s prompt teases me at the top of the page (The One Minute Writer)


Something you love about yourself.

It makes me wonder how we define self-love these days. Is it the Me Me Me culture of social networking, where you fill photo albums with self-portraits and proclaim your awesomeness via status updates? Is it in the way we carry ourselves and perform everyday tasks? Is it the decisions we make about our lives? Or some combination of all these things?

Self-love and depression are sworn enemies. Neither tolerates the other and they’ve had some knock-down, drag out fights in my head. For every kind word I give myself is a counteractive negative thought to discount it.

Me: I love the way I look in tanks and jeans and sneakers.

Depression: Who are you fooling? No one’s checking for your whole ‘I’m so naturally beautiful I’m above being fashionable crap.’ Get you some MAC and a pair of leggings.

Me: *stares in mirror for a few more seconds* You know what? Shut up with that bull. I look good.

So yeah. Self-love can get pretty tricky around these parts.

It’s not the showy “Look at how awesome I think I am” game that it was in my early 20s, but rather a commitment to being kind, gentle and forgiving with myself and being ready to do battle with that nagging voice in my head that tries to tear me down. It’s about embracing myself as I am, respecting my limitations and building a life including people and situations that bring out the best in me.

That’s how I love myself.

Back to the question at hand: What do I love about myself?

1.I love my body. After years of wishing I had a few more pounds of this and couple more inches of that, I have finally learned to love what I’m working with. I spend an extra five minutes in the mirror every morning after my shower and now and then comes that nagging "eewww, too boney". Then I think of what some other folks I know are working with and smile. It’s probably the most vain act of my day, but with poor body image being a nationwide epidemic, I figure I’ve earned these five minutes of daily conceit.

2.I love that I’m a survivor. For every fall I’ve endured, a great comeback has accompanied it.

3.I own my flaws. A practice I learned from Marshall Mathers. Now tell these people something they don’t know about me.

4.I love my writing. I have an intense love/hate relationship with my pen. I try not to absorb critiques or praise too much and just keep the pen moving, but occasionally, I’ll look at something I’ve written and say “Damn. I am kinda good at this.”

That's all for now. I've got a 5 page paper on Aristotle that I've been procrastinating on for 2 months...it's due, tomorrow at noon!