I grew up hearing lots of great things from my parents. Things such as
"You are beautiful. You can be whatever you want to be. You are such an amazing artist. You can do anything. You are special." And yet for most of my life I have felt the exact opposite of what my parents told me about myself.
As I'm sitting here writing this I realize that I just don't believe in myself at all. And I'm wondering where this feeling came from. Not to place blame and certainly not to avoid accepting personal responsibility for myself but I realize that a lot of the problem I have with myself is a mirror to what I saw growing up. Someone saying to me, "You are beautiful", only later to see that person look at themselves in the mirror with disappointment or telling themselves how "fat" or "ugly" they were. It left me confused and conflicted.
Eric and I were talking about our future children and it scared the shit out of me. How can I possibly be a mother without screwing my kid up? It might take years or even a whole lifetime for me to feel confident enough in myself to be able to reach that point. I do not want to be the parent that tells the kid how wonderful they are and then talk about how awful I am. It just doesn't work!
I love my parents and I know they did the best that they could. I don't hold anything against them. I have just learned a valuable lesson about how much kids truly look up to their parents and the important people in their lives. It's actually kind of frightening.
