so today was kind of an important day for me. it didn't start out that way, but it wound up being probably one of the most important days of my life. maybe ever.
i didn't get much sleep last night. (1) i just don't sleep well, (2) it takes forever for me to get comfy, and (3) i was up talking to the disaster group chat, trying to convince them to sleep. it was fine.
i got up on time though, and because i already scheduled the appointment in zoom, all i needed to do was click on the pop up to start the call, and i was able to work with my student for an hour and a half. she was definitely getting it by the time we were done working. i'm pretty proud of her.
after that, i popped in to my multidimensional calculus class's zoom meeting to talk with my professor. we chatted for about half an hour about things in general, about how my work is progressing, about how i'm doing in my other classes, school-related things and otherwise. it was nice to talk to her. she's fun.
around 1, i went downstairs and saw my parents for a few minutes before returning to my room where i was set up. i had eaten some food, and i grabbed my salad from the other day and i retired to my room to eat and work on math.
as i was working, i got a call from christine! my appointment was scheduled for today, of course, and i remembered that as i saw the caller ID say "no name." so christine and i talked for an hour or so. i told her about my empty days, and she suggested paying attention to if that happens again and what my stressors might be. i told her about thanksgiving and my anxiety that i always get. i told her about my schoolwork progress. i figured out that i was honestly pretty impressed by myself. while we expected my brain to boot up like it usually does toward the end of the semester, i'm still proud of the fact that i was able to do about two months worth of high-level math in eight days. she was proud of me too. as we continued talking, i brought up a few things that i had heard in the past - how a student once recommended me as a chemistry tutor to her whole class, about how our program director said they get the most compliments and praise about me. and it kinda hit me then, combining with this morning's successful tutoring session, that it was nice to be able to do something that helps someone and to know that the things i do matter to other people. i also brought up the lady from last week at the pottery place, who last week said "someone over there has a lovely singing voice" as i sang along to the radio. and i realized it was satisfying when other people enjoyed what i was doing, when i was doing something because i wanted to. so much of my life, i mentioned, has been some facet of "give everything to others," and i realized that i didn't owe anybody anything. i don't have to do anything i don't want to. i don't need to give in to other peoples demands, just because they want me to do something. and that sort of realization that you have control over what you do and the fact that you don't have to do something just because someone else wants you to do it, that's liberating. freeing. i leaned back in my desk chair and smiled up at the ceiling, bright and wide as i realized i don't live for other people. i live for me. and that's how we left my session today.
but that wasn't the only breakthrough from today.
later, after i had showered and then gotten dressed and worked on more math after determining it was difficult to focus on a problem while trying to hold up my towel (i just wanted to do math, okay? i was excited), i wanted to put my hair up and put my earrings on so when we went out to paint this evening i felt put together. so i went into the bathroom and i put in the effort to smooth out the bumps in my hair, so put in my earrings, to adjust my shirt.
and as i looked at myself in the mirror, i saw something i had never seen before:
someone who was confident. kind. smart. caring. pretty?? appreciated. not just appreciative, but also appreciated.
i looked in the mirror, and for the first time in my life, i saw something that i liked. loved, even.
i looked in that mirror, and for the first time in my life, i saw someone who deserved good things. who did good things. who is good things.
and that shattered my world.
tears immediately sprung to my eyes, and as i sobbed, i looked back at myself - that's me in the mirror, i realized - and i waved. i choked out a bright "hi" as tears continued to freckle my glasses, to stream down my cheeks that were pulled up in the brightest, biggest, most genuine smile i've ever directed at myself before.
the person i saw in the mirror was deserving of love and of good things, was kind and good and despite their shortcomings, was still worthy. and that made me cry some more.
when i returned to my room, i sat down to work on more math, but was interrupted by my momma, who came upstairs to check on me.
i told her all of my breakthroughs, about my successes for the day, and she said to me this: "i don't know what switch flipped, but you finally see what i see in you." and it didn't hurt. it didn't aim to break, or berate, or belittle. i saw it for the kind words it was: support. i saw them and i appreciated them, but i didn't need to rely on them. that was new. because of my constant and unyielding lack of self-esteem throughout my life, i've relied on the praise and comfort from others to keep myself together, to believe in myself because others believed in me.
and i think i began to believe in myself, too.
after another long hug from my mom, who spat angrily at the school that fucked me up, and after i mentioned my brain was likely fucked long before that, i went to go see lisa and casey to paint.
i didn't paint another mug, but i did get to pick up renee's mugs. and they look amazing!! (i'm so excited to give them to her. i think her gift is my favorite one i'm giving this year.) i painted a bowl today! i started with the idea of doing a midnight blue and a tangerine orange because that's joel's favorite color combination, but then i grabbed yellow because why not, and i found myself back at the table, at a total loss for how to paint my bowl. the past month and a half or so i've been painting, i've been using almost exclusively black and white because of the unus annus mugs i've done, so sitting down without black and white felt wrong! so i got back up and grabbed the black and the white and i sat back down. i laughed at that. i painted the inside yellow, and after lots of contemplation, i painted the outside black. i grabbed some writing bottles, and i made a swirly pattern on the black outside with the white, adding in dots where the joints were, either in white or yellow. i realized i hadn't done a design like my Classic Swirls, so i did that today. my hands shake a lot, so i'm okay that the swirls aren't perfect smooth. they never will be, and i'm okay with that. (radical self-acceptance?? what is this???) but i made the swirls on the outside, and did a small flower of dots on the inside in black and white. this left the edge - a mostly painted but incomplete ridge at the top of the bowl. i didn't want to paint it all black, as i'd have to touch it up and wait for a while, and i didn't want to paint it yellow because i'd have to remove a lot of black and clean off the edge and i didn't want that. so i took my white writer bottle and made dots along the center of the ridge all the way around, and then put black dots in between them. they ended up merging in a black and white snake that vaguely reminds me of dao's beetlejuice overalls, but it worked really well with it. i accidentally hit the wet edge a few times. the first wound up looking cool, but it wasn't uniform anymore so it bothered me. then it turned out i just made it worse. when i finally fixed it, we were getting ready to leave, and the strap of my backpack pulled at the same spot i had just redone and took off some paint and smeared the rest! the agony!!! so i just did it again. i also got the glaze off my backpack, too, so there's nothing wrong. the bowl's edge looks a teensy bit off, but i'm not perfect, so neither is my bowl. and that's okay. my hands shake, i knock things over, i'm indecisive. but that's okay! i'm not perfect, and i don't need to be. who i am is enough.
after we painted, we got dinner together, sitting at a secluded applebee's booth at 9pm on a tuesday. i ate super fast because i was apparently very hungry. we sat and talked a little bit, and it was nice to just sit without needing to focus on trying to keep my hands from shaking at very fine motor skills.
i listened to christmas music on my way home, and upon arrival, i made my way upstairs to finish up my math homework - the last two problems for today's section. i also rewrote my to-do list, which is more of a "what's left" list, as all of the remaining bits of homework are on it with due dates and stuff. at the top there's a few boxes with the dates in them from now to the last day of the semester, so i can keep track of things that way, too. i just needed my list to be clean.
i talked some more to the group chat, my beautiful disaster children with whom i shared my mirror breakthrough, and i helped one of them with some chemistry homework. chem is tough, but once you have someone explain it in a way that begins to make sense, everything else will click and fall into place. kind of like my math homework! which is honestly pretty easy, and that's something i'm grateful for. it takes concentration and focus, but it's easy to do if you're invested.
and for perhaps not the last time today, i am once again impressed with my brain's capacity to cram. but it's really not cramming - it's just learning a lot in a short period of time, but not intending to forget it. which is cool, to know that i can do it, but it's frustrating that i have to know that i can do it like that. if there's one thing i wish i could do about one thing, it would be that i could keep up with due dates in all of my classes instead of waiting until the end of the semester to get everything done at once.
but yeah. today was a really wonderful day.
and even better: i made sure joel and i will actually get to spend time together tomorrow because i'll have my homework done and he doesn't have anything scheduled, so i will actually get to spend time with him tomorrow! i'm so happy!
