48 consecutive days… Who am I? And what happened to the girl who thought she didn’t know how to write well?
She is still within me but I think I got her to shut the heck up quite a bit about what my abilities are when it comes to writing. It’s crazy, I honestly thought I would have missed a day or two, here or there by now BUT I haven’t and now I’m starting to think about whether or not this streak will ever end. This writing thing has become my own personal diary for everyone to see but it has also become somewhat of an addiction that I’m learning to enjoy.
Key word there is learning… I enjoy the after feeling. It gives me a sense of accomplishment without having to do much physical labor. Haha it’s true, the typing part probably burns 20 calories (if that) haha. It’s the mental accomplishment I truly didn’t know was even a “thing”. Who knew? But here we are 48 days in of successfully accomplishing SOMETHING!
But as life-giving this has been for me, I have to share one of my fears… How long will I be able to do this?
Not only does that scare me, but what happens when the streak ends? How will I feel about myself if I miss a day?
Seriously this is where my head is at these days. I’m afraid that I will beat myself up over the silly fact that I missed a day. I’m already talking myself to the ledge about being a failure. What? Yup… Missing one day will make me a failure and so since I don’t want to be considered a failure, I show up. Crazy, right?
The reality is I know in my deepest of hearts I am not a failure. There is no consequence for me missing a day… But if you remember that girl that I got to be quiet with my success, she is ready and willing to jump up and call me all sorts of names. I know this sounds silly to read, I feel more silly to write it, but this is where I’m at right now and since this has become the diary of Ashley Monzon, you basically get all versions of her.
I don’t know where this egotistical name-calling lady came from. I remember during a therapy session when my counselor told me that the little girl inside needs to “shut up”. Yup the little girl was being a mean girl and I was letting her affect the adult version.
I assume most therapists tell their clients the opposite, right? Nope, somewhere down the line of growing up I decided the little girl inside me was going to be the judge, the jury and the executioner. (Insert face palm here) Doesn’t it make you wonder what happened that made me decide this? I wonder too… I know at the end of the day it doesn’t matter because it made me who I am today, NOT who I decide I will become tomorrow.
That’s the beauty of life really… the good and the bad make us, yes but once we become aware of something, we have the choice to continue it… AND the choice to change it if we choose. I’m definitely still learning to embrace whatever the little girl inside my head say but I’m also learning that I don’t have to believe the words she says either.
All I have to do is ask myself, “What is true right now in the situation I’m currently in?” and that usually follows up with question like, “What evidence do I have that makes that 100% true?” Not 90%, not 50%, one hundred percent… yes I took the time to spell it out because it has to fact, not assumption, not based on past experience, fact at this point right here right now.
So in this writing streak I got going on… I know that if I missed a day, right here and now, would I feel a sense of disappointment, absolutely! Does that make me a failure? In this moment right now, I could NOT consider myself a failure because I missed one day out of the 49 days. That would be crazy, right?
Maybe this is a foreshadowing to the day I miss, cuz lets face, it’ll probably happen. I promise I’m not trying to miss a day, but you never know what the tomorrow brings. But I guess this is going to help me for when the day comes when the mean girl can get out of her time-out and wave her bratty little finger at me, yelling “You suck! You’re not good enough to write! Nanny-nanny-boo-boo you can’t catch me!”
Ok maybe not the last part but you get the picture.