Somedays I Really Don't Like Me

I had a wonderful childhood. No broken bones. No abandonment. No real traumatizing experiences. Thus far, I have been pretty blessed in my adult life as well. I have parents who remind me, and who show me, that they love me every single day. I have a sister who tries to be the greatest role model and big sisterly influence in my life and does a darn good job at it. I think my brother-in-law is hilarious, something I am not genetically obligated to say. I have the same core group of friends that I have had for my entire life, as well as a couple great ones I picked up along the way. I don't have any real major vices - don't smoke, don't drink too much, and don't swear (well shit, we all know that one was a lie). And, nearly three years ago, I met a man who changed my entire world for the better. 

My rational brain does a really good job at counting my blessings. It knows each one by heart. Solid family. Great friends. Solid education. Pretty strong future. Loyal man. 

And yet, despite that rational part of my brain, there is also a part of me - maybe the part that listened to a silly boy a hundred years ago, or the perfectionistic part that is never quite content, or even the reckless part that never wants to get too comfortable - that keeps repeating, "You don't deserve any of this." Not that degree. Not that family. Not those friends. Not that man. You're going to mess everything up, just wait and see. 

And boy have I tried to mess it all up. I drove my parents halfway nuts when I was in high school - never calling to tell them where I was at 3 in the morning, dating the boys they knew were trouble, and acting like I knew better than they did what was good for me. I was kidding myself. I treated my sister with little to no respect or concern, as if she wasn't the best friend I ever had, something I regret so deeply because nobody could ever care about me any more than she does. I ditched my greatest friends for loud, obnoxious boys on more occasions than I could count, boys who ended up ditching me soon after (just like my friends warned me they would). And, perhaps worst of all, once I did end up with the kind of man I dreamt I would find someday, a man who can and does love ALL of me, even the flaws and quirks and imperfections, once I had him promising me forever, I tried to sabotage it in every way I knew how. Starting petty fights. Not listening. Distancing myself. You name it, I did it. 

And still, through the rebellion, the disrespect, the horrible prioritizing, the impatience, the impulsivity, and the mistakes, they still love me. Pardon the expression but WTF? My unusual body type, my crooked bottom teeth, my inability to hold back any and all emotion, my opinion-filled rants, my putzing around in the morning, my coffee breath, and even that weird bump on my back that only appears when I'm cold (don't even get me started on how weird that is)... they will love me regardless. I will never understand what I have done to deserve any of these blessings but I need to remember that, even on those days when I don't really like me... hell even if I can't STAND me... they will never give up on me. That's some powerful stuff.

The First Man I Ever Loved

I watch from the passenger seat as he turns the wheel of his old pickup truck. His blue eyes remain focused on the road, glancing my way only for a moment to ask, "Ready to catch some fishies, little punk?" I nod my head and flash a half-toothless grin. Dad turns back to the road, his strong voice singing along to a Bob Seger song on the radio. The summer sun has bleached his hair even blonder than usual and a thick, strawberry blonde mustache rests beneath his round nose. 

We get to the beach and Dad puts the pickup in park. We slowly walk down to the water, hot sand sinking under our flip-flopped feet. Dad carries the tackle box and fishing rods; I carry the two Styrofoam cups that temporarily serve as a home for the worms. I ask him if the worms have families, if I'm murdering them by putting them onto the hooks. A big white smile squares across his face as he chuckles. He assures me that it's not murder as he makes adjustments to the rods and fiddles with the tackle. I don't understand what he's doing, but assume it is very intricate and essential to the fishing process.

Dad's left arm guides the fishing rod back slowly and then jerks it quickly forward. The line cascades into the air; the bait and tackle plop into the calm bay in front of us, releasing ripple after ripple. Dad talks me through the process and I try my best to follow his instructions, but somehow my line gets tangled behind me. He laughs in a sweet, gentle way that assures me he is not upset with me. He fixes the line and throws it out into the water. 

We sit on our plastic lawn chairs all afternoon, the ends of the rods buried deep in the sand. He tells me stories as we eat Cheetos and drink canned Fresca. The sun beats down on our bare freckled shoulders and he keeps reminding me to reapply sunscreen to my fair skin. When the sun starts to set on the bay, we load up the pickup and head back to the trailer. We have nothing to show for our hard work. Neither of us seems to mind.

So many women have stories about absent fathers, either physically or emotionally. I have neither. I had a father who dropped everything to be at my swimming lessons, my choir concerts, and even my piano recitals (ugh). I have the opposite of "daddy issues" - I have a bar set so high that it is nearly impossible to match. And yet, even with such a strong male figure in my life, even after watching how lovingly and respectfully he treated my mother, even with countless examples of what true love should be and daily "I love you"s from the man I loved most in the world, I allowed myself to be in degrading relationships. 

I remember being about thirteen or fourteen years old on a car ride to a neighboring town to see a movie when my father looked over at me and said, "Please don't go for the bad boys, Lauren." I remember laughing and asking him why he thought I ever would. He told me that sweet girls like me like to fix things, we like to cure people. He had seen too many of these girls get burned and he didn't want that to happen to me. I know that I heard him, but I should have listened.

Why You Should Give a Crap

The greatest mistake of my life thus far was when I believed a boy who told me that nobody cared what I had to say. He told me a lot of things. He told me that nobody could ever truly love me, that I was crazy, and that he regretted wasting his time on me. 


Silly, stupid boy. 

But I did believe him. I was 17. He knew best. He always did. I trusted his opinion more than the beat of my own heart. He was my world and my world didn't want me around anymore. My thoughts were irrelevant and uninteresting. My dreams were unimportant or impossible. I lost faith in my own brain, hands, soul, and spirit because ONE person told me I wasn't worth their time. And all the while I loved him. 

Silly, naive me.


But eventually I learned better. And as Maya Angelou says, when you know better you do better. This is me trying to do better. Since a blog is cheaper than therapy, I have chosen to write candidly and honestly about the past five years of my life. I won't hold anything back. I will tell it all because my stories are not so different than anyone else's. My pain isn't so unique. We all hurt in some way or another, to some extent or another. 

So this is my story - filled with an interesting mix of starry nights, shady characters, hard liquor, belly laughs, mistakes, unlikely friendships, starry nights, a broken heart, a broken toe, and a good man who wrapped his arms around me on the edge of a dock and promised me forever. Hopefully you are able to use my perspective on friendship, love, pain, and ongoing self-discovery to inspire or simply reiterate your own thoughts. 

And so it begins.