Good enough...

Feeling "good enough" is something with which I have struggled my entire life.

I wasn't good enough for my parents to treat me well.

I wasn't good enough for the boys I liked to like me back.

I wasn't good enough to be "rescued" from various difficult stages in my life.

Several years ago, I even went through some CBT in relation to my self-worth issues. I "graduated".

So, I wonder... how is it that a chance encounter with a complete stranger can send me instantly down that spiral of self-loathing and create within me a feeling I have fought so long and hard to be rid of...

"I'm not good enough."

According to Random Stranger, I wasn't thin enough. They called me an elephant and said that I bumped into their cohort simply because I was so fat that I required the entire pavement to myself. I should have been smaller. I should lose weight. I should know my place, take up less space and not be so damned self-righteous in my assertion that I am a deserving human.

According to my lame-ass retorts, I wasn't clever enough to throw anything more back at them than trying to yell my excuse that it was *they* who bumped into *me*. I should have called Random Stranger a "clever little boy" and asked him, if it took me X amount of time to lose weight, how long would it take him to not be such an utter prig.

According to my rampant self-loathing immediately following the exchange, I wasn't feminist enough. I didn't stick up for myself against this person of the opposite gender who decided to be offended and rude on the behalf of the person with whom he walked. A woman. I should have asked *her* if she was offended or hurt. I should have ignored the man completely and, instead, asked the woman with whom he had been walking if *she* realised that *she* had walked into *me* - Or, better still, asked her if it was a requirement that he fight all of her battles for her, if he ever let her stand up for herself.

According to how this is still affecting me, more than 24 hours later, I wasn't strong enough to let this go. I haven't allowed it to wash over me. I am still damaged, hurt, seething, embarrassed. I could have realised that there is nothing wrong with my size. Yes, I am large, but I am not "obese" and, even if I were, I have nothing to prove to Random Stranger. I could insist that the problem is with him. The problem was with him presuming that he and his friend may walk two-wide down the pavement and spare no thought for anyone who might be passing in the opposite direction; They Will Wait. We Are More Important.

But I didn't do any of those things.

Because I'm not good enough.

And so here I am. Feeling like I'm back to Square One.

I will pull back up out of this. I always do. And I have been trough far worse.

My personal theme song isn't ACDC's Back in Black for nothing.

I do still wonder, though, if I have been through all that I have and come out on the other side cheery, smiling, bright-eyed and full of promise - why has this affected me so deeply?

Writing Prompt - The One That Got Away

As soon as I entered the ticket hall at the station, I knew something was up... I have no idea why, but I could sense something wasn't quite... I don't know. I can't describe it so I don't know why I would even try but let's just leave it at "I knew".

What I didn't know, couldn't possibly have known, was that I would run into my ex. The one known as "The One Who Got Away".

It was my fault, of course, it always is. And how she used to tell me off for not watching where I was going... it's one of the reasons we split up.

And I wasn't.

Watching where I was going, that is. So, I literally ran straight into her. She wasn't watching where she was going either, obviously, but her reason wasn't terminal shyness, it was because she was walking with one of the most gorgeous little children I'd ever seen and they were having a lively debate over which was a better colour: red or green. I had heard some of their conversation as it drifted into my consciousness. I may not have seen them, but I heard them. I listen to people. That's what I do.

When I looked up from the collision with her, my heart at once sank into my feet and began pounding so loudly it drowned out any coherent thought I had hoped to have.

She looked dishevelled, which I immediately found disconcerting as she was ever serene when we were together. Our mutual friends, the ones she "won" in the split up, always quipped that we were like chalk and cheese. I was hurried, frazzled, excitable versus her utter calmness in any situation... even when I inevitably broke something on our way out the door to one of her important work functions and we then had to stop and clean up the mess.

Her clear brown eyes met mine and the half-mumbled apology on her lips fell away. Her hand flew to her hair, smoothing imaginary strays, and she muttered my name before collecting herself so quickly that I worried of an impending sonic boom.

I mumbled her name in return and tried to smile but it was stolen, along with my breath as she breezily announced, "I thought you were... gone". She squeezed the hand of the adorable child beside her and smiled bigger, her voice softening before she continued, "I didn't expect to run into you".

My heart broke at seeing her with a child... I had always wanted children; she didn't.

Or, at least she didn't with me, I thought unfairly.

I cleared my throat and ran my fingers through my manic hair in an effort to collect my thoughts before I responded. "My research took an unexpected turn. It turns out that the story is right here and I'm about to send my second edition to my editor. Listen..." I took a deep breath. This was going to be hard. Painful, most likely, but she'd always tried pushing me to be more assertive. "Could we maybe get together some time to, you know... talk?"

I suddenly couldn't bear to look her in the eye so glanced down at the child, desperate to avoid her gaze but also to see if the young boy looked like her. Are you hers? Is that your mother? I hoped to bore the question into his head, unsure which answer I wanted more.

She straightened and I caught the movement from the corner of her eye. I attempted to mimic her posture but I've always been a sloucher. Another thing that annoyed her to no end. Her eyes bore into mine as she quietly said, "It's been ten years. You need to move on. Please. Let it go. Let me go."

Her voiced raised a little and she lifted her chin before announcing, "Right, Emmett. Come along or we'll be late for the zoo!" She tugged the little boy's hand and off they went.

I couldn't bear to turn and watch them walk away. I couldn't bear to let them see the tears that had suddenly sprung to my eyes.

Emmett.

The name I had wanted to name our unborn son all those years ago.

Writing prompt - A Letter To Writer's Block

In an effort to #justwrite, I have found a list of writing prompts from Writer's Digest which is a fortnight-long sample of their Writer's Digest Presents a Year of Writing Prompts and will be giving them a bash over the next while so please bear with me (Arrrgh! Did you bear? I beared. I bet you didn't bear. Oh well.)

Here's the first of the prompts:

Dear Writer's Block,

It's not you, it's me...

... I'm just finding that I am feeling unfulfilled when you're around. It's like there's something... missing. Something I long for, a yearning I have that is always present when you're here.

When you're not present, that empty feeling is lifted. I'm much happier, upbeat... less tetchy and whingey. I don't like myself that way. It irritates me that I'm irritated and it makes me irritable. Are you seeing the pattern here?

In light of this, I've decided you simply must go. I'm sorry to do this to you. I know we've spent a lot of time together but I've changed and made some difficult decisions that I know are for the best for both of us.

I think, if I can be brutally honest here, that you're better off alone. You're quite selfish and needy... and demanding! Boy, are you demanding!

If you do find someone, though, I wish you both the very best and hey! Perhaps that new person won't mind your "issues" so much.

Because I really do.

And for my own emotional well-being I need to leave you behind and get on with my life, get on with the process of "finding myself" and all that that entails.

I hope this doesn't leave you too bereft, but I'm sure if you're honest with yourself... you kind of had to have seen this coming. No?

Take care, and try to keep in mind what I said about considering being alone.

Signed,

Please don't call me

Create the magic...

A mind-numbing fear of failure mixed with a deafening need for perfectionism means I often start projects that, despite the best of intentions, I never actually get around to finishing.

I am my own worst nightmare.

I love the creative projects I start. I nurture them, I coddle them, I feed my self into them...

Until I feel I have learned a lesson or have successfully demonstrated a new skill...

Then, I stop.

I loathe this about myself and am ever frustrated that this trait not only exists but that there seems to be no rhyme or reason to where the limit/tipping point is!

I once challenged myself to learn to knit a sock.

I knit a sock.

A. Single. Sock. And then I stopped.

Why?! Because that was the challenge I had set myself. Learn to knit a sock.

Finally, over a year later, I had to challenge myself to see if I could knit a *pair* of socks, just so I didn't feel so horrid that I'd learned a skill it seemed I was never going to use. (I still have the socks and while I love them, I don't wear them as often as I should.)

Perhaps another personality trait/flaw is that I am just too damned literal. Perhaps I need to be less precise, more open-ended in my language. Perhaps, I need to realise I am so literal and work *with* it and expand my challenges before they are set rather than accidentally allowing them to limit me.

Who knows.

No, seriously, who knows?! Do you!? I'd love an answer.

In any event, the above parts of who I am have accumulated to mean that I haven't written in, I'm embarrassed to say, over five months.

I'm actually cringing as I write this, I feel that ashamed.

Note to self:

"Writer"?! Not if you don't effing *write*, lady!

You "lost" someone very special the other day. The Goblin King. A man you've never met but one you'd hoped one day would cross your path.

That opportunity will now never come to pass and you mourn the loss of something you never had, but also the loss of the magic he helped bring into your life.

You're clever, though, and know that the magic doesn't have to leave just because the man has had to go. You can...

CREATE THE MAGIC

Write. Read. Make. Knit. Crochet. CREATE!

Now, consider this the proverbial kick in the backside and DO something about it other than just lamenting the fact that you haven't done it!

And, just to remind you...

Rainbow ripples

When I was smaller (I'm being very careful here and deliberately not lying to you by saying I *was* a child, past tense because we both know the lay of the land on *that* one!)

Ahem... When I was smaller, I had a wonderful blanket of many colours I called my 'rainbow blanket'. I *adored* that blanket and should ask my mother where it went, actually...

This blanket I absolutely adored and snuggled into quite often in my book-filled, anti-social, daydreaming world of childhood. I could spend hours inside this protective cocoon... safe, secure, snuggled, innocent. Through the messy and sometimes violent divorce of my parents, my rainbow blanket was solace. It didn't walk away, it didn't yell, it didn't scold attention-seeking behaviour, it didn't push a needy child aside to deal with 'bigger problems', it didn't play an innocent child against anyone else in a horrid game of one-upmanship... that blanket was my life raft, in essence, my comfort.

In an effort to more firmly grasp some of the nostalgia for my early years, I hunted high and low for a replacement. Finally, after much deliberation, I discovered a wonderful crochet blanket pattern created by the wonderful Lucy over at Attic24 and the gorgeous colour variation created by KnitKnatKnotUK over on Ravelry.

I spent literally months deciding on which colours to choose for my blanket as, while I definitely wanted a rainbow theme, I didn't want an in-your-face garish rainbow.

The yarn I chose was Stylecraft's Special DK which is acrylic (Reminder: I can't handle animal hair/fur-made fibres) and feels, I am pleased to say, nothing like what people presume acrylic will feel like.

It's soft, smooth and gloriously wonderful in hand.

This is my chosen colourway:

To start the blanket, I chained 297 as recommended by KnitKnatKnotUK and have made some (*very little) progress...

I started with the Violet and have moved to the Royal but seeing them so closely together, I am slightly regretting my choice of colours... At the moment, I am honouring the choices and sticking with my selection in the hopes that it all comes good in the finished product, but only time will tell.

I'm very much hoping that the newest generation of the rainbow blanket lives up to its legacy and becomes a snuggle-inducer for years to come.

(Pictures and progress notes will be forthcoming when they pop into existence!)

How to learn a valuable lesson about the curse of perfectionism

1. Be a steadfast perfectionist
2. Glance into the corner of your office where there is a ghastly open void
3. Grumble at the blatant waste of space in said corner
4. Design a bespoke shelving unit that fits *exactly* into that awkward corner, taking very accurate measurements and drawing everything neatly on your plans
5. Research how to finish the unit. In depth. Read forums and products reviews with advice (Paint? Spray or brush? Sticky-back plastic? Decopage?)
6. Ask someone to "handy" build it for you
7. Talk them through your complex drawings and ideas, confused, as it appears your notes are suddenly not *actually* very legible
8. Reiterate that, while you are a perfectionist, you do not require perfection from them
9. Admire at how that handy person tackles the job with gusto, problem-solving along the way
10. Don't admit to yourself that there were problems to be solved
11. Watch them give up ("for now") part way through because the finish you chose for the unit is too damned frustrating and just. won't. work. properly
12. Let the project sit for a couple of days, all the while glancing into the chasm in your office
13. Decide to tackle the unit yourself
14. Realise that the handy person was right. It's a pain in the ass
15. Tell yourself that it won't be perfect. It's impossible. The materials are repelled from each other like oil and water
16. Tell yourself it doesn't *have* to be perfect
17. Clench your teeth while you work and repeat #16 every time the plastic sticks to itself and not the wood and every time the plastic won't stick to the wood and every time it bubbles and every time it buckles and every time you cut a crooked line
18. Be wrong 

Silent Sunday

(all photos taken 2015.08.22)