Moment of Anxiety

Like every love story, there are moments of doubt, fear, anxiety, failure, falling down, messed up, learning to love myself has all those and much more.  Today is one of those less bright moments.  Depression is nipping at my heels.  Sorrow is playing its song.  I am not even sure why.  Good things happened on the weekend.  I felt closure over some of the incidences in my past.  I felt peace.  Then everything started to fall apart.  Tonight was a big fat blah.  I was late for dance.  Didn't want to fulfill my responsibilities, vegetated watching tv shows that I have seen before.  Ate lousy - banana bread, a cookie and a cupcake were my dinner.  I played games until after 1 in the morning.  I dragged at work today.  Yup, every love story has tough moments.  Here is the interesting thing I am learning.  Loving myself is not dependent on me performing well, doing things perfectly, being at the top of my game.  Loving myself includes nurturing me when I am down.  Encouraging myself to get back up on my feet.  Eat what I know is good for me.  I think I spent a lot of years beating myself up for not being in top form every moment of every day.  I didn't expect my children to be perfect every day....why do I do this to myself?  I almost didn't write this but I remember a conversation I had with my brother.  I heard through family gossip about the wild exploits of his children.  I was worried about meeting them.  I finally did and found them to be bright, energetic kids.  I volunteered to take all the kids down to play at the school playground.  My brother insisted that he come along since he felt I wouldn't be able to cope.  Well I had twice as many kids and I had coped for years.  We walked down the street.  I decided to match him story for story about our respective kids adventures.  I knew with twice as many kids the odds were in my favor.  By the time we reached the school he was floored about all the misadventures, hijinks and sometimes naughty things my kids had done.   He asked me why everyone thought my kids were better than his.  I smiled, "Because I don't tell anyone about the negative things."  When I love someone, I don't tell anyone about the negative things.  They are there.  I don't ignore them but the negative things are as much a part of them as the good things they do.  Like a photograph, we are all lights and shadows with many shades in between.  Tomorrow is here and I need to sleep a bit.  I will eat healthy meals again, I will exercise again, I will be more productive again.  Today being an off day, I am happy to realize, I don't love me less. 

I don't remember where I found this wonderful picture.