Photo – a present to yourself

Sift through all the photos of you from the past year. Choose one that best captures you; either who you are, or who you strive to be. Find the shot of you that is worth a thousand words. Share the image, who shot it, where, and what it best reveals about you.
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Okay. There. A picture of me, from November 2010.

Look, I hate pictures of myself. I never feel like any of them "capture me" in any way, shape or form. This one, through tricks with camera angle and lighting, looks the most like the me I envision myself being. You can't see my tummy, you can't see my teeth, you can't see all the other myriad of flaws that usually bug the heck out of me about myself. And my hair is behaving itself. I look happy, and healthy, and thinner than I actually am. Is that deceptive? I don't know, and I don't really care.

Who shot it, and where, really has no bearing. It was a headshot, taken specifically for the purpose of showing to other people who want to see me.

There aren't, in my opinion, any pictures of me that are worth a thousand words. So... Alright, I give, I'm copping out here. But dammit, photos? I fucking hate photos. Grr!

Everything's OK

What was the best moment that could serve as proof that everything is going to be alright? And how will you incorporate that discovery into the year ahead?
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Everything being okay is a concept I've always struggled with. It's something I've never really been able to convince myself of, emotionally speaking, even if I can do it intellectually. See, I have this never ending internal monologue telling me about every flaw I have, every mistake I've ever made, and every mistake I will ever make, warning me that no matter what I do, or how well I do it, I will make a royal mess of it, and it will ruin everyone's life irreparably. I am constantly terrified of doing something wrong, saying the wrong thing, making the wrong choice... Of failing. Not myself, mind you, -- I've long ago resigned myself to the idea that I will always fail myself somehow, as unhealthy a mindset as that might be -- but other people; people I love, and care about, or even random strangers on the street. I never, ever, feel safe. Not entirely, anyway. There's almost always some part of myself that's afraid of something.

Yes, I am ridiculously and horribly insecure. I don't trust myself, or have faith in myself, for even simple every day life sorts of things.

I know why. Anyone who knows my parents should know why, too. From the moment I was old enough to remember, I was subject to a steady and unwavering stream of criticism. I have never, at least in my mother's eyes, been good enough, or strong enough, or smart enough, or pretty enough. Everything I touched was automatically flawed, just by virtue of me touching it. I was not trustworthy, or responsible enough. I would always screw it up, no matter how perfectly I did something. Any praise I did get was always tinged with some sort of judgement, balanced out by some complaint. And when simple criticisms and strings of emotional abuse weren't enough, screaming and yelling and lashing out physically would supplement...

And when your concept of "normal", from such a young age, consists of nothing but fear and degradation... After a while there's no re-writing it. You come to view praise as embarrassing, and it feels wrong. And that sense of wrongness perpetuates itself, playing on those fears of having done the wrong thing, said the wrong thing, and you end up feeling miserable. You find yourself needing someone to treat you badly, just so that you can feel good about yourself. You need to suffer, to feel like things are "right", and "real". Because anything else just feels... wrong.

Like, if you're right handed, but someone spent 20 years forcing you to write with your left hand, not letting you use your right hand for anything, only your left... And then suddenly, you find out that you can write with your right hand. Even though it's the most natural normal thing in the world, even though you KNOW that writing with your right hand is the correct thing for you, it feels wrong, because you've spent your entire life doing it a different way. Your frame of reference is skewed -- the negative of a photograph. Like a camera white balanced on a blue screen instead of a gray card...

Do I fight this thought pattern? Of course I do. The logical side of my head says that thinking that way about myself just can't be right. That I must do something correctly, or I wouldn't be alive, or have a stable healthy long term relationship, or a 12 year old son, or friends, or a place to live... But that irrational side of me, the one I can't seem to logic myself out of having, tells me that all of those things I got through sheer luck, that I'm undeserving of them, that I got them despite myself not because of myself. I argue with myself a lot. Pretty much every second of every day, I spend arguing with myself, trying to convince myself that I'm not a waste of oxygen, that I deserve the good things I have, that I can accomplish things, dammit.

There are only a rare few moments when I'm not having that never ending argument with myself. This afternoon was one of those moments, while I was out hiking what's become my standard 2.5 mile loop through the Fraser Woods, and down along Whatcom Creek. I can put my iPod on, and hike, the rest of the world beyond my sight blurring out into pretty much nothing. It's as if even I fade out of existence, and become nothing and no one -- just a body, moving, breathing, heart beating, and a set of eyes watching the birds, the bugs, the flowers, the trees, the river -- and that unceasing monologue of self depreciation stops. My head goes quiet. I'm not afraid. I don't have to hurt to feel like everything is right with the world, because "right" and "wrong" don't exist anymore. Things just are. And those are the times when I'm most able to think that everything is going to be alright.

So, in the year ahead? Hike more. Lots, lots more.

New Name

Let’s meet again, for the first time. If you could introduce yourself to strangers by another name for just one day, what would it be and why?
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I... What? What on earth kind of silly question is this?

Okay, fine, so maybe there are people out there who don't have nicknames that have become so ingrained into their own self identity that they use those nicknames instead of their real names. Maybe, there are people out there who hate their real names badly enough that they want to use another one. Maybe there are people out there who have a fantasy self that they want to live out for a single day. I am not one of those people.

I introduce myself to strangers as "tess". Sure, it's not my real name (at the moment anyway -- it will be my legal middle name soon enough -- long story.), but it's a nickname that so many friends call me, and have called me for so long, that it's just sort of what I think of my name being. The only people who call me by my given name are people who have known me for longer than that nickname has been around -- mostly family, and friends who are so close and so long lived as to be as good (or better than) as family. Even M doesn't call me by my given name, and we've been together for 6 years now.

And this nickname of mine, properly spelled in the lower-case despite legal documents refusing to recognize that peculiarity, is even more the real me than my given name. Again, a long story. But it was an organic process, not just something picked out of thin air by me that I propagated the use of. It just sort of, well, happened. And I like it. So I can't really think of any other name I'd rather use than the one I already do. It has meaning to me -- much more meaning than the one my parents gave me -- and makes me smile to hear it used because it reminds me of that meaning every time.

Travel

How did you travel in 2010? How and/or where would you like to travel next year?
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How? By car, and by foot. :p

Okay, serious answer. I spent 2010 doing a lot of local exploration. Going out to YAL in my county, finding the cool waterfalls, winding my way through dirt packed trails to find yet another route to try fulfill my goals of 6 miles of hiking a week. We've gone up to Baker Lake, Mount Baker, Nooksack Falls, Silver Lake, Lake Whatcom, Chuckanut Mountain, Teddy Bear Cove, road tripped all along 542, 20, 9, and a bunch of little back roads that I can't remember the names of. We've gone down to Seattle a couple times, gone to Roslyn, spent snowy winter days in Leavenworth, gone to see Snoqualmie Falls, and the little diner from Twin Peaks. By myself, I've hiked through the Fraser Woods, and along Whatcom Creek, and through the marsh between the two.

It may not be "travel", as such, to some people. But for me, it is. And I'm continuing it this year. I always will. I love exploring, and there's so much to explore right out my back door, that I don't need to go on huge trips to "travel".

That said, I'll probably be heading home to NY for a week or so this summer. And I want to go see friends and loved ones in other places as well. Whether or not I can afford to, I don't know. But I'm going to try.