Kitty

I really miss her.  :(

Two

In many ways, I'm two people.  If you're a teacher, you probably understand this.  My "work self" wears khaki pants and some drab polo shirt almost every day.  I'm fun but super clean, and always busy.  My "home self" is always showing off my cleavage and tattoo; I hate khakis but love jeans and heavy eyeliner.  Let's just say I'm not uber-clean when I'm away from school, and I spend most of my time relaxing in different ways.

Then there's the pre-cancer me: a young, fun, carefree party girl. I promised myself I'd never setttle down, and although I "loved" everyone, I really made it a point to not care too much about anyone (including myself).  The me now is a little different- I'm definitely not as young, not as care-free, but I work hard trying to be.  I'm just too old to party like that anymore, and don't really have the desire to most of the time.  I'm lucky enough to say that I'm in a relationship that is so good I only dreamed it could exist.  And although I'm still very careful who I bring into the circle of trust, the people in my life have a very different meaning to me now.

Despite all that, there are things that overlap all of these "me's:" the main one being I am flawed.  If you would've told me at 20 that at 36 I'd still be trying to break the same habits, I probably would've laughed.  At so many points in my life I was a model of discipline, and yet, for most of my life, discipline has escaped me.  I had hoped that age would bring wisdom, and perhaps more age will, but for now, I'm giving up on the guilt.  That's not to say that I won't keep working towards that me that I know I can be, but I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired about it.  And I'm all about that whole "always in progress, always complete" thing.  I'll probably have to remind myself to redo this giving up thing every month, but today I don't even care.  Seriously.

So this may seem like a downer of a post, but it's really not.  It's awesome.  Being flawed is awesome.  You should try it.  :)

-MM