Reflection(s).

Was looking through scads of profile pics and other such things on my FB page, trying to find a photo I could share with a new friend.

… And do you know?

I’d disappeared from my Life.

Completely.

All of my photos were of my kids, or of my shows, or of places I’d been, or of people I love. This past year, I avoided tagging or including any actual, really-real picture of myself.

I was surprised, and am quite sad thinking about how little I have loved myself. I really was hiding from everything, everyone, from allbodies (as my boyo says) – even myself. Wow. Wake-up call.

If you’ve been reading, you will have noticed I am having kind of a tough week (i.e. crappy-crap-crap, super-shit, difficult, sobriety sucks-kind of a week). And part of my frustration is in the way I believe I look – I am pretty sure I look tired and a little stressed out, and several times a day, I’ve caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and couldn’t tell that I’d stopped drinking. My eyes had circles, I seemed puffy, I just look blah. Whereas, in the first two weeks of sobriety, maybe I was riding that Pink Cloud to Wonderland, but I thought I looked aMAZing. I was pretty sure I was the hottest I’d been in years, and that I suddenly went phhht! back to being my old self-at-29 (one of my hotter years). But really? Not so much. Reality has called and is checking in on a daily or hourly basis, dammit. With all this crashing and bumping against the universe this week, I am feeling the worse for wear, and am sure I look it. So I am grumpy about that.

And now, with the whole self-image in the mix of looking for an actual photo of myself, I am just surprised…. What a strong and vibrant metaphor – I disappeared. In the past year, I consciously (although, really subconsciously) erased myself. How horrifying. And sad. Now, here I am really seeing Me for the first time in a long time, and I am frustrated with how I look? Someone hit me. Thank god I can see me! Thank god I am looking! Finally. After so long. Too long. All this petty, silly stuff from this past week? I am erasing that and embracing the fact that I am still here and mostly whole. (And I’m going to embrace me in sobriety even if it is like a well-intentioned animal-lover hugging a porcupine.) I have not disappeared, and that is such a wonderful thing. I will cling to the fact that I have matter and worth and goodness in me, and I will see it. … And I may also add a selfie-challenge for myself. Because really? An entire year of no photos? None? I must unerase myself. Immediately.

Day 28, now you see me.

 

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