Tangles

  

via retronaut.com

I don't know if you know this about me.
But.

I'm married to a porn addict.
AND
I have self-worth issues like maaaaad.  Put those two together and what do you have?  A tangled mess of a rat's nest. That's what.

Did you know I don't place much value on myself?  Please don't misinterpret this as a subtle plea for compliments or validation... I promise that's not my aim here, so keep reading with that in mind.

I just.
I don't understand my true worth.

It's bringing me to my Savior and to my knees, but I still don't understand it.  I'm working on understanding it.  I REALLY am. 

While growing up, I thought I had to meet certain physical standards to be loveable.  I didn't understand that I was lovable AS IS, with all of my quirks and talkativeness and thick glasses (yes) and bad haircuts and hand-me-downs.

My self-worth issues came to a gigantic head in High School (because High School is awesome like that) and I went through a crazy bout of depression in the which I consumed my body weight in Raisinettes.  I emerged from my chocolate cocoon completely transformed. 
I.
Quit.
Caring.

I would literally (and I'm using literally the way it's supposed to be used here) roll out of bed, throw on some clothes, grab my back pack and then walk to school.  No make-up.  No hair styled so-so.  No worries or cares if my legs were shaved or whatever.  During that time, I raked in friends like crazy.  I wasn't trying to or meaning to, but I was so comfortable with ME that other people were comfortable with me as well.
I don't know how to dress well at all, and I embraced that in High School.  I quit spending all of my money on one shirt at the mall, and started using my money to buy 5 shirts, 4 pants, a few skirts, and a pair of suspenders at the thrift store.  The shirts didn't go with the pants.  And nothing I bought matched my red bowling-type shoes or my pepto-pink back pack. Or my orange scarf.

The walls of my bedroom became an infinite collage of pictures, magazine articles, anything I ripped out of anything that made me feel positive emotion: it was My Beauty.
I sat on my shag orange rug with my guitar and wrote song about x boyfriends.  I wrote poetry.  I busted open my change jar and went to a rock concert four hours away on a school night and STILL made it to school the next day.  Ever paid for a concert ticket with quarters?  Classic.
I let go of my old way of thinking: that make up and clothes were where my beauty lied.  And as a 16 year old, I embraced ME. 
I moved out of my parent's home when I was 17. 
After I turned 18, I met my husband.  He was drawn to my confidence in myself.

But my low self worth wasn't gone.  Turns out, it was simply lying dormant under layers of my confidence.  When I married a porn addict, it broke through the surface of my confidence.
Everything I'd been and loved about myself?  Gone.  Swept away.  Forever.
For.
Eh.
Verrrrr.

At least, it felt that way. 
I worried so much about my hair, my face, my clothes.  My layers of confidence were sipped up at an alarming rate, but I couldn't see it, couldn't sense it... to me everything happening was simply all TRUTH.  My husband would let me know when I didn't match.  He took me and bought me an entire new wardrobe as a gift. 
I got so many compliments on it, and I felt GOOD. 

I slowly got rid of my thrift store collection. 

My definition of beauty and self-worth shifted back, back, back... back to the days of The Deep Depression.

I'm going through so many old emotions.  SO MANY.
When will I roll out of bed and be okay with that?  With simply BEING? 
When will I stop fussing over my clothes and feel utter confidence strutting out in my thrift store finds?  When will I find a spot of wall to call mine and cover it in absolutely ANYTHING that tells of My Idea of Beauty.
My Beauty.

I don't know. 
I'm a tangled mess right now.  And yes, Raisinettes are involved, so I know I'm on the right track. 
I don't know how to change.  But I know who DOES.  The Master of Change is the Master of Me and I lovingly call him Master.

My three older brothers used to pride themselves and their Boy Scout knot abilities when it came to untangling my necklace chains.
"It takes a true Boy Scout," they'd say, "To untangle Girl Scout tangles."

(har, har, guys.)

Do you think my Master is a true Boy Scout?  Can he untangle this mess? 

I'm scared to be my true self, afraid I will be rejected, afraid I will never completely stop apologizing for talking too much, afraid I will never see BEAUTY in ME.

Master,
Where is Thy Beauty that I may see mine?
THIS article has changed my life for the better.  Whether or not you are a mother, please read it.  It WILL change the way you talk to the women in your life, no matter their size or age.