Ámate

Ámate. Love yourself. It sounds so easy, but it can be the hardest thing in the world to do. No one tells you what loving yourself means. There's no step by step guide on how to do it. But people are quick to tell you that "you can't truly love anyone until you love yourself" even if they don't know what exactly it means themselves.

This whole idea of loving yourself has come to me many times over the past year, maybe even the past few years, but I never really thought about it until tonight. "Why is this night different from all other nights?" as my Kindergarten self once asked in a Last Supper play. Tonight I picked up Jennifer Lopez's book "True Love" and read it cover to cover. It's so insightful and inspiring. As I read J.Lo's words, I wondered, "do I truly love myself?"

Now I'll be honest here. I think I do, but looking back on past behaviours of mine like my hair pulling, at times I just don't. Jennifer mentioned a lot of her journey to loving herself involved forgiving herself for beating herself up in the quest for perfection and making the same mistake time and time again in her relationships because she wasn't fully in tune with herself. After she finally hit rock bottom she was able to build herself back up again to become the strong and powerful woman, mother, and artist we see her as today.

I've hit rock bottom before, actually it was exactly 3 years ago next week. That's when I was fired from my dream job leaving me with nothing but struggle for the 7 months that followed. I did so much self-reflection at the time and learned a lot about myself. I thought I was building myself up for a comeback. When I finally got a job I thought I was all set. In the two years that have passed, however, I think I've been slowly knocked back down again, maybe not to rock bottom, but somewhere near the bottom.

I was grateful for my job when I first got it. I was able to pay off back bills, pay my current bills on time, and get back to paying off my college loans again. I'm a hard worker so they made me a salaried employee and even gave me a raise. But something's missing, badly. I crave creativity. I crave excitement. Being an admin in my office is neither of those things. Work can't just be about getting a paycheck so I can pay bills. I need to enjoy what I'm doing. Instead I often find myself in a negative environment surrounded by rude bosses, entitled customers, and frustrated coworkers.

I need a change, and loving myself, truly loving myself, is definitely a place to start. I want to be a woman of integrity who doesn't let anyone knock her down. I want to be someone who gets to do creative work and is recognized for her talents. I want to forgive myself for anything I've done in the past and move on to a better future. I think even just declaring this on my blog is a start in the right direction.

Today marks the beginning of the last two weeks of 2014 and the start of winter. I want to live the last two weeks of 2014 like how I want to live in 2015. I want to use this winter as an interim of sorts as I cocoon myself in positive thoughts and actions so I can emerge a spring butterfly on her way to greater things. Ámate. That's what it's all about.

Serenity. Courage. Wisdom.

You know that moment when you're all about achieving something, and then suddenly the rug is pulled out from underneath you just as you start making headway and you can't regain your footing? That's what happened to me 3 years ago. The dream was to be a music publicist. I don't know why it was that specific of a dream, but in high school I decided PR was my path and in college I felt the music industry needed me. After a few post-grad twists and turns, I had done it. I was a music publicist. Looking back I realize I was overworked, and most likely underpaid. I was given more clients to manage at once than my friends who worked at the top award-winning global agencies. Was I happy even with a chronic lack of sleep and lack of a social life? At the time, yes. I knew that I had signed up for a field that is often 24/7, but being young and eager I forgot I needed to set boundaries. A few months after I was hired, I was fired so my bosses could take the company in a "new direction" without me. Basically they moved and left me with nothing.

For months I struggled to find a job in my field and outside of my field, and nothing happened. I was flat broke and literally starving. I dropped about 30 pounds going from a curvy size 8/10 to a lean size 6 and went to local churches 3 Saturdays out of the month for groceries that were often already expired. I couldn't pay bills. My internet got cut so I spent a majority of my day at the library. The electricity was almost cut a number of times at home too, but luckily family and friends came to our rescue so we weren't sitting in the dark. I had to defer my school loans for the first time ever since graduating college. My credit card maxed out and was sent to collections.

Yes, times were tough, but I really loved myself. I was the most focused I have ever been in my life. I kept myself occupied by taking advantage of the library collections around me. I read every book they had to offer on PR, advertising, and marketing, but often I found the books geared towards artists and designers more informative and interesting. I used a Photoshop tutorial book to teach myself the program. Interestingly, ever since I read it, I've never been able to find it again in the library. Guess it was that good that someone decided to keep it for him/herself. What I really focused on though was conquering my trichotillomania. I've pulled my hair out ever since I was 12. That's literally a wee bit more than half my life. I just became really conscious about what I was doing, why I was doing it, and how I could change my behaviour. I focused on the habit for months and eventually I stopped pulling my hair out. It was brilliant. For once I was finally over it and just in the nick of time too; I was finally hired part time at a local company which meant what I would have spent on transportation fees could be used to take care of the back bills. I was so grateful.

After 2 months at the company my part-time position became full-time. I was once again grateful until I realized that meant they were firing my co-worker who was a single mother with a young son. As the daughter of a single mother I know how tough it is for single parents. I felt guilty for jumping at the full-time position offer because I didn't want my co-worker to now have to struggle to provide for herself and her son like I had to with my own mother from time to time. All of the stress from thinking about this constantly make me want to pull my hair out again, and thus, my trichotillomania returned and it's been back for the last 2 years now.

While the stressor has changed over the years, the result is still the same. Lately my stressor has been my passion, or lack thereof. I'm just so bored right now. Everything has become a routine at work and at home. There's no excitement anywhere. I miss working in the city. I always had things to do, and if I didn't, I found things to do and write about on my blog. In my town there's nothing inspiring. I just go to work and come home. Work isn't the best either. Yes, I'm grateful to have a job, but the work is so boring and at times aggravating. Customers and a few select coworkers can be so rude. Their sense of entitlement is nauseating. I was offered a raise recently. Ironically, while I was grateful for the raise, I just wanted a new position.

I guess I'm bored with myself, thus I feel everything is boring. I need to find that spark again, that passion, that joie de vivre. I'm trying so hard, too hard maybe to find it. For some reason the Serenity prayer just came to mind.

I think I need to say this prayer, stop over-thinking, and stressing myself out that I can't change my life in a matter of hours. Like I horoscope I read a few hours ago said, I must come to grips that things take time and I shouldn't be in a haste to get to the finish line. Like they say, slow and steady wins the race. And right now, I'm going to accept the things I cannot change, pray for the courage to change the things I can, and believe I have been blessed with the wisdom to know the difference.

And now ... I'm going to sleep. I may have taken the rest of the week off, but the next 2 days are probably my busiest and going to bed at 3am like I am tonight won't do me any favours. On with it then.

Good night and thank you for reading. I hope my honesty inspired you in some sort of way to become more honest with yourself. When I started writing this blog post, I had planned to write about something completely different, but then these truths all spilled out. Can't change it now. I mean, I could hit delete if I wanted, but I don't want to. Everything happens for a reason, and I believe this is a story of mine that must be told.