"10 Things I like about you, I mean-me?"

This is for the Self-Appreciation Challenge below

1: I refuse to be like my mother.

My Mother is a prodigy of her past, but aren’t we all? The only difference is I get help. Everything is wrong with the world. Justifying everything she does even if it meant dropping crumbs on the floor, she'd blame it on the rug. Breeding her disease into all of her children. I see traits of my mother in me all the time. In my thoughts. How I perceive the world. It’s called catastrophic thinking. I’ve battled anxiety because of my mother’s disease. But I do not live in denial of it.

I’m free.

2: I don’t settle.

First off, I have settled. I’ve dated the weird guy, the fat guy, the rebel, and I realized they are all capable of breaking my heart. I don’t ever have to do it again. So, when people see me single at 36, and say "she’s picky that’s why she’s single" trust I will run lines about it in my head.

3: Hopeless romantic.

If you ever get the chance to be loved by me, its obnoxious. But communication is my forte. I will over communicate the crap out of myself to make sure I’m not leaving room for questioning when it comes to love. When things collapse in a relationship, I know I have done my part. I will say I love you first, I’m kind of funny like that. But I always make sure you love me back before I do.

4: Independent from Politics.

Have you noticed if a conservative or liberal in power makes a bold move then it must be right?

That’s not me, sis.

I will never be a sheep. I am first a Christian, which we will get to that in my number five, but I’m also a humanitarian, and a flaming feminist, and sometimes low-key the toxic kind, which I try to hone in on.

5 : I’m Christian.

That’s a loaded topic. But is it? Or do we make it?

In a world where evil exists and children and animals are abused, it only makes sense to me that there is "a Savior.”

I don’t believe in Jesus because he convinced me. I believe in Jesus because y’all (humanity) convinced me. 😂

Evil is real.

6: I’m Emo.

To me, emo just means susceptible to pain. Not a style, or type of clothing.

My emo story begins near the end of high school. A Captain of the cheerleading squad, kissing boys in hallways, and mean girl energy. It’s high school! You do what makes you accepted.

So, this was me.

I was cursed with the evil spirit of puppy love. Screw ambitions!

My parents had an ugly affair. It happened in church. My dad ‘the music minister’(plot twist), became a chronic addict, and my mom, well she never recovered.

So, what do I do? I run to chase that boy who later, sent me packing.

Vocal trauma dump, but it’s what I appreciate about myself. This kid once a tarnished piece of paper, now molded into something better, perhaps an origami dragon?

7: I love animals!

I used to be embarrassed of this, not because I love animals, but because I would die in a fire trying to save one.

I will sit in the sun and watch lizards lizarding, and birds birding or grasshoppers hopping and suddenly I’m, so okay.

I have two cats, one hairless and one, well …hair.

8: I Dream.

This is a trait I used to loathe about myself until I watched other people do it and succeed.

Okay, maybe becoming an astronaut was a stretch. I’m glad that phase ended quickly.

I learned with balance, and hard work you can most certainly do big things, hard things, and even get to the stars.

9: I laugh.

I take humor to the next level. It’s probably a coping mechanism but I’m okay with that. I’ve laughed at a funeral before in excruciating pain having to pretend that I was crying because I was choking on gusts of air. My cousin was singing a song by Boyz 2 Men in acapella ( are you picturing it?), when he touched my grandma in the casket, I lost it.

10: I write.

I believe the writer in me, is part of the image of God and what that means is we take on his attributes. He is a lot of things. But what I think I inherited from the Creator is his passion for words. Jesus was a poet.

“In the beginning was the word, and the word was God.”

God was indeed the ultimate writer, still writing today.

Photo dump of things I like about myself