why can't I take good advice?

Some of the best advice I was ever told was actually from Joelle. She told me that we don't talk to our friends as if they are the scum of the earth because we love them, and look past any petty faults to the beautiful person inside, so we should do that for ourselves as well. To treat ourselves well, both on the outside, and inside, and in how we communicate with ourselves. I love that idea so much. Talking to ourselves like we are our own friends. Seeing past the faults to the person my friends can apparently see...the person on the inside, that SHOULD transcend all petty issues we have with ourselves. I love that, and yet I find it so hard to put into practice. I mean, logically this idea makes perfect sense to me...and I DO pride myself for being quite a logical person but I just can't seem to make this concept a reality for myself. Take last night, for example.

I was up later that I wanted...I couldn't make my mind stop going, and I ended up wanting to purge the things going on in my head, so I wrote down a series of statements or questions that were on my mind. I would never say these things to a friend, never even think about for a friend, so WHY do I ask myself these things, and think of myself in this way, even for a brief second.

Some were insulting:

" I feel like my state of employment reflects my self-worth: barely there."

"I feel like I am too fat to succeed in any endeavor I try, such as London, and successful relationships."

"Why do I feel like such a failure?"

and some were just things that my mind won't let go of, even though my advice to a friend would be to forget about all that and focus on the positive things:

"From the time I was very small I've always wanted to impress my father, so why is it now almost every time I think about him I cry?"

"Why is it that the relationships I invest the most in -excluding my friends from Calgary- hurt me the deepest?"

There were more, but those are a few examples I actually wrote down.

NOW, some of those I still feel and do everyday, but some I certainly don't. I need to find a way to talk to myself like a friend, and I think as I talk to more and more people about how their summers are going that lots of people could benefit from this as well. But how to begin?

This IS the question. I feel like there is a little separate part of my brain (like the director on the shoulder in acting class) telling me what my worth is, and why I am not as good as those around me, and I just need to boot him off the shoulder and out of my life. I KNOW I am a good person, I've been brought up well, I have a part time job I enjoy, I am in a good school, will receive a university degree, and will probably (hopefully?) always have a roof over my head and food to eat. Things people take for granted, but shouldn't. I have friends I love and who love me. I have special talents, and hobbies, and things I enjoy and am good at. I just need to remember these things when the little angry bitter voice enters my head and let it overpower any negative things that may be said to me. I need to be my own friend. I haven't been a friend to myself in a long time, but I think I am ready and willing to give it a try. I feel like I will be a lot happier if I do this.

I don't really know how I want to end this post, or really know what message or whatever I can get out from this, but I need to find a way to be happy this summer, and changing my mind frame about myself seems like a good place to start.

Love you all, and thanks for the advice Joelle! <3

Kesinee

Holy God...

...I feel like I'm sinking. I don't even know why, really. I am loving living with Rita, and I know it would be so much worse without her here, but I am slipping nonetheless. I miss my family. Every time I think about them, and how far away they are, and that I am the only one not there, I get really upset. I KNOW this sounds like a little first year complaint, but I was never homesick in my first three years of school. Not really. I have grown up enough to realized how important they are to me, and am still young enough to yearn for the comfort of my childhood home and city. My routines from adolescence, my old job, my car, my room, my friends, the park by my house, my old running route. Everything. I miss it all, but nothing more than my family.

My family also includes my closest friends. I have Rita and Kathleen (and Eve just moved as well) here, but I miss Ali, and Hannah, and Joelle. I miss our sleepovers, and long rambling talks, even our games of truth or truth. I miss watching movies on Ali's epic sized television, and being just a short drive in Myrtle to get to any of you, and all of you.

I miss my job. I miss working with children. I feel so lost here in Victoria. There is no network for me here, no sense of purpose this summer. I feel like I am useless, and the embarrassment of my family. I am the only one to not have a fulltime job. I DO have a job at a theatre here, but it is far too partime. So part time, I often wonder if they really wanted to hire me in the first place.

I think a big thing, is I am just feeling really unwanted within the city. I mean, I do have friends here to hang out with, but no real adult purpose to be here. I had a valid fear at the beginning of the summer that I would regret staying here this summer, and I am afraid that fear is in the midst of coming true. I feel stuck, and sad, and lonely, and mad at myself, and there are happy times, many of them, but right now at this very moment when I am writing this, the overwhelming emotions are negative.

I want to come home. I want to stop crying.