I'm... awesome?????

The other night at a meeting while pouring a cup of cawfee, one of the girls I know, and also facebook friends with, said to me "Sandi - I read you on facebook all the time and you are always saying how AWESOME you are... how come you do that... it's kinda weird..."

I think I had the "deer in the headlights" look on my face because she quickly laughed like she was joking.

There is enough of the old Sandi left in me that I immediately wanted to whip out my phone and peruse my facebook wall to see if I actually DID what she claimed I did.   I spent a good 3 minutes wracking my brain trying to remember if I had even USED the word awesome recently.

I smiled back at her and said "I don't do that! But I AM awesome..." and I laughed.

Of course, I did look on my facebook wall at all my posts for the past umpteen years and with the exception of some of the funny quotes and ecards from Pinterest, I didn't see any posts by me saying I was awesome.  It's not something that would fall naturally out of my fingertips.

Another friend mentioned that by me reposting Sherri's gorgeous jewelry creations and saying "someone should buy me this" I was being very obnoxious and always looking for free stuff.  (that friend also got the deer in the headlight look)

I thought my friends knew me better than to think that way about me - 99% of what I post is said very tongue in cheek, with a hint of humor and a whole lot of self-deprecation.  (And the whole point of me reposting Sherri's work is to lead my friends to her website so that they too can become addicted to buying her jewelry.)

Which made me wonder why they would say something like that... and BAM... there was the old Sandi mentality rearing it's ugly head.

Repeat after me... It is NONE of my business what other people think about me.  I spent a lifetime worrying about what people were thinking and saying about me, and while that's not what drove me to drink, it certainly stoked the fire. 

I put their comments out of my head, although as you can tell by my needing to post this, that a little hurt still holds on.  So since this is my version of journaling, I'm journaling out that  hurt.

And dammit, for the past 3 years, Brave Girls Club has drilled into my head DAILY that I AM awesome. That I AM enough. That I AM brave.  That I AM good.  That I AM strong. That I AM beautiful.

And that daily affirmation helped bring a self esteem that was lower than snail snot, up to a level that has brought confidence to my soul.  And I refuse to let anyone steal my sparkle.

Spanks for listening.  That needed to come out... xoxo
Sandi