I am not so nice to myself these days

Tonight I made dinner for two friends before we ran down to the Ritz Five for a free Philly Film Society screening (“The Thing About My Folks,” Peter Falk and Paul Reiser playing father and son, it’s sweet and funny and sad and endearing and you don’t have to be Jewish or from the east coast to see your own family in it). As payment for the meal, I forced my friends to listen to me, yet again, bemoan the fact that I feel directionless and without purpose. Coming from me, this is not a new story for them.

We walked down to the movies and once in our seats, I started to whine to Ingrid how pointless I’ve been feeling. That I want to be extraordinary and mostly I feel unimportant and like excess in the world. As I was ranting on, I glanced over to her and noticed her that her eyes had started to tear up. Seeing her close to tears, I shut my mouth. She took my speechlessness as an opportunity to tell me that I was not pointless, and that in her life and in the lives of our other friends, I was extraordinary. That I mattered to her. Hearing this stopped me in my tracks, because I realized that the current tear I’ve been on, trashing myself to anyone who will listen is not only damaging to myself, but it’s damaging to my friends, who don’t see me as pointless, but instead see me as valuable and important in their lives. I was stunned. It isn’t often that someone is willing to show you how they see you. Ingrid gave me a brief opportunity tonight to see myself from her perspective, as opposed to my own, slightly warped one (sometimes I feel like I see my personality and the space I take up in the world with the same level of distortion that anorexics see their bodies). I have to admit, I kind of liked what I saw. I’ve been spending so much time punishing myself for the things that I’m not recently, I haven’t spent any time enjoying all the things I am. This doesn’t mean that I won’t slip back down into a little self-judgement and dissatisfaction in the future, but when I start down that path, I’ll try to remember how I looked through Ingrid’s eyes.

0 thoughts on “I am not so nice to myself these days

  1. Sandra

    I think we get so used to seeing ourselves or judging ourselves that we don’t see what others see that we actually are, and it takes another person to tell you what it is that is great about your or remind you what it is that you don’t like about yourself. I’ve always had a body image problem. Really what a woman doesn’t? We’re all taught from a young age that you have to be skinny, blonde, blue eyes and tan to be beautiful. I’ve not ever been overweight but I’m just a big girl. You can blame my mom’s German genes and my dad’s Irish genes for that one. LOL I’m 5’ 5” and big boned. You know made for birthing big babies, which I’ve done 2 times by the way. 😉 I’ll never weigh 125 lbs unless I want to be anorexic. I’m super happy w/ the way my body looks these days, which has taken a lot of work on my part by going to the gym 3 or so days per week and watching what I’m eating. In my head I’d like to weigh about 10 or 15 lbs less but I’m happy w/ the way I look now. I’ve had a certain person enter into my life recently that has let me know I’m beautiful, and it seems like it took this person’s comment to make me actually believe that I am and this has helped me accept who I am/the way I look.

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