Achievements unlocked: Selfie

Project Reverb prompt: “Victory Laps: What was your biggest accomplishment this year?”

Oh, ouch. Well there was something, but that just came to a screeching, grinding halt filled with goo.

So….  I learned a lot. A huge amount. I stuck with some things, possibly when I shouldn’t, but I did get knowledge from it.

I stood up for myself. In a variety of situations. That has not been easy–with biological family, with friends and in work situations. I’ve taken the lumps that come with that because it was time to stop being a doormat. It was time to stop being the one who is always patient and understanding (cruel words, ignoring our family in times of need, outlandish behavior (reply immediately or else!! ), blowing off important dates ). It was time to stop being the one holding things together and being treated as disposable.

Now…how to make sure these types of people and situations don’t get into my life in 2015.

Reverb14 prompt: “Please post your favourite picture of yourself from 2014, self-portrait or otherwise! For bonus points: make montage of the selfies you have posted for the past four years or however long you have been participating in Reverb!”

Oh I hate pictures! of myself. With me in them. It is the harsh judging of the not looking the way I want to. I can’t remember when I’ve ever liked pictures of me. I saw one  many many thousands of years ago when I was 14…I thought I was fat. I saw it recently and wondered why I hated it so much.

This year had the great hair freakout of 2014. I’d had a stylist for a few years. I got a great platinum pixie, but the time for it passed and I wanted to grow it out. I was told that it had to keep getting cut to prevent the dreaded mullet, instead…after a long time  (oh 2 years maybe!) of it only getting incrementally longer I realized …nope, the stylist was keeping it short. I asked the reply was I was doing what you really meant me to do, reading between the lines. NO no no no I really meant I wanted to grow it out. So I spent two years in hair growing out limbo, wondering why it kept looking like ass.  The freakout came after I ended up with a short soccermom stuck to my head hairdo that was..terrifying. Luckily after a few weeks sponge rollers worked. You know it’s bad when even your gentle diplomatic child says “it really doesn’t look like you mom.”  And it happened right before I had one of *those* birthdays. The ones where you crawl under the bed and weep into a pint of ice cream.

All that said, I’m not in many pictures and I don’t take many selfies. I wonder if I will always be that way.  I hope I can find a way to get comfortable and not always be behind the camera. That said, here are some I like . Also our kid is wonderful. And yes I’m wearing a Tardis bathrobe.  The cat is Babbage, the kid is Miss Bean, the friend is the one who brought me back from the brink of hair suicide.