Smiling Mom

Before I begin and end with part three, I feel com­pe­lled to men­tion that I am actually a very happy, bles­sed, gra­te­ful per­son.  I am in no way cur­led up in the fetal posi­tion suc­king my thumb or stan­ding on a cliff ready to jump.  My last two posts see­med to have promp­ted much con­cern in the form of emails, phone calls (plu­ral), and a batch of deli­cious coo­kies deli­ve­red from my loved ones. Thank you for all your love and concern.

I tend to be an extre­mest, just ask my hus­band!  And when I wrote, “This inter­nal dia­lo­gue haunts me daily,” I may have been over exag­ge­ra­ting… just a tad bit…sorry for that. 

These posts were actually ins­pi­red by an acti­vity we did at church a while back where you had to write down your nega­tive inter­nal dia­lo­gue in hopes to change it into something positive.

I thought it would be a nice acti­vity to turn into a series of posts.

Sigh.  I was wrong.

My mom, who is like the nicest per­son in the entire world, gently sug­ges­ted that I might want to end this post on a bit of a hap­pier note.    That made me laugh!!  But she’s right.
Even though I kinda regret expo­sing my inner demons to my clo­sest family and friends and really feel like craw­ling in a hole and hiding for 6 months, I will finish what I star­ted.  Brace your­self for one more downer…but tomorrow’s post will be way bet­ter, promise!!

Part 3 of 3

Too Young and Naive.

This inter­nal dia­lo­gue haunts me, daily.

Too Young & Naive

I began teaching at twenty one.  I wore my hair in two braids, like Julia Roberts did in The Firm.  My prin­ci­pal fre­quently shook her head at me and said I loo­ked like one of my students.

When I spoke up at team mee­tings, my exci­ted, new, hope­ful ideas and beliefs were quickly dis­coun­ted.  “That’s nice, Nanette.  But here at this school, we do things differently.”

I was too young and not taken seriously.

An inter­nal dia­lo­gue I’ve repea­ted to myself each day since.

Now I’m thirty two.  My hair is big and poofy.  I have wrin­kles and love hand­les.  My vir­tually non-existent breasts actually sag.  I’ve been teaching for over ten years, and somehow still feel that I’m vie­wed as too young and naive.

But then the that begs to be asked, “Who views you this way?  Others?  Or you?”

I think it’s the latter.

And it’s going to change.

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Yeay!!  Yip­pee!!  Whoo Hoo!!  I LOVE pup­pies and but­ter­flies!!  Weee!

How was that?  Happy enough?

No?

How about an ado­ra­ble pic­ture I just took of my fan­tas­tic cho­co­late lab, Kayla!

I knew you’d love that!

Tomo­rrow is my anni­ver­sary.  And I’ve got the grea­test pic­ture of my hus­band.  One you won’t want to miss!!

Thanks for the coo­kies, phone calls, emails, and love.  You guys are the best.