Stitching together a new quilt

[FindingMyVoice]

Life is kind of like that: some folks make things seem easy, but that's only because you don't see the sweat and dedication they invested in what they are doing up front. Over time, those things become 2nd nature to them.

Thanks for the excellent posts, Time & dburt. (And sorry, this is likely gonna be long - just have to think a few things out)

I know you're both exactly right - my head gets it. My heart keeps interrupting though and saying things like - 'yes but dburt and Time must be so much smarter than I am ... I could never accomplish anything like that'. I'm just a flaky artist - I'll never amount to anything that important'.

So when I'm telling myself stuff like that I guess it's not a surprise the struggle I have weathering the tough times. As long as everything's going good I'm good. But the moment I fall on my *ss, it takes me ages to get back up again.

I wonder if that's why I keep getting so overly reactive when my H and I have a setback. We had some friction last week and what did I do? Got completely, utterly depressed, cried alone for a while then sat down at the computer and started looking for apartments. I figured 'well, I guess that's it. All that work was for nothing, we really weren't meant to be together.' [edit: of course, I didn't end up actually leaving; one of my friends talked some sense back into me]

All this work I've been doing trying to raise my self esteem; maybe I should also be reading that book by Seligman - Learned Optimism I think it is. Maybe self-esteem/self-worth and optimism kind of work together; or are two sides of the same coin. If I felt more optimistic and believed in my capabilities more, maybe I wouldn't want to give up and run away, every time I make a mistake, or come up against something challenging.

Well, thanks again guys. Congratulations on your solar project dburt. Congrats too, on your studies and your 'A', Time (calculus...brrrr...scary!!).