I believe in self-care

One. Life is a lot less painful when you aren't inflicting pain on yourself.
Two. And a lot less scary when you can count on yourself.

This is why I believe in being good to myself, in looking out for myself. Why I feed myself when I'm hungry, no matter what. Why I stop myself from pinching my stomach or yelling at myself in my head when I don't think I look good. Why I try to encourage and soothe myself instead of beating myself up. Why I work to keep my life in order. Why I have to forgive myself and keep myself safe.

There is a therapist's trick to test how you deal with yourself. You ask yourself:

Would I treat a child the way I am treating myself right now? Would I feel okay subjecting a child to the way I talk to myself? What about my best friend? Would I tolerate this kind of treatment from another person?

When the answer is no, something needs to change.

Things that are making me happy

• Non-stuff gifts, like the donations los padres made in me and my sisters' names...the kind where you buy a goat for someone in a developing country, you know? As my contesserate has been saying, it's a more appropriate way to celebrate the birth of the man who taught us to eschew material possessions.

• When someone who smells really nice walks past me and leaves a wake of olfactory goodness washing over me

• Or when I pass by a house with the scent of incense drifting out of it. (Ever since freshman year when I roomed with a New England hippie, incense to me is the smell of sanctuary.)

• Sharing a bed with my puppy-who-isn't-mine

• House-/puppysitting income

• The gift of a webcam—so that even though I am the most geographically distant of the family when I'm at school, I can still SEE my baby niece (and my sister and bro-in-law) regularly!

• And gifts of film and money to ease my moolah-related worries for next semester

• Cut-out Christmas cookies

• A chrysanthemum-shaped cookie cutter

• Shawls

• Receiving a package from New Hampshire and a Christmas card from Thailand on the same day

• Using the Reverb10 prompts as journaling prompts

• White-boy afros

• Odessa's birthday/bloggiversary post

• How I know I'll always get along easily with the people I grew up with at my childhood church, because our parents are friends and we've never not known each other. Even if we only see each other once a year, as some of us did last week.

Week in photos: 10-16

This week, I met my two-month-old niece for the first time.
I smelled her head and kissed her cheeks pretty much without ceasing.

In empty or ugly hours: G.K. Chesterton on minimalism and gratitude

"Robinson Crusoe...owes its eternal vivacity to the fact that it celebrates the poetry of limits, nay, even the wild romance of prudence. Crusoe is a man on a small rock with a few comforts just snatched from the sea: the best thing in the book is simply the list of things saved from the wreck. The greatest of poems is an inventory. Every kitchen tool becomes ideal because Crusoe might have dropped it in the sea. It is a good exercise, in empty or ugly hours of the day, to look at anything, the coal-scuttle or the bookcase, and think how happy one could be to have brought it out of the sinking ship on to the solitary island."

- G.K. Chesterton
in Orthodoxy

I was reading this in bed last night, and as I read this passage, I did just that—looked at my pillow and imagined how it would feel to have that pillow with me if I were stranded on a desert island. I could have hugged it—my soul positively swelled with love.

A Christmas card, kind of.

Dear you,

I hope your day has been full of light, warmth, and good company. Thank you for sharing your company with me here—your thoughts, encouragement, and inspiration are such gifts.

I want to ask you something—to think about if there is a way I can be of support to you, something I can do for you this coming year, a way for me to be a better friend. Whether we are close friends or have never exchanged comments or emails yet, I would love to hear, and I really mean that, because it is just right and so good when we ask each other for what we need...and you have many other people in your life probably to ask, and I'm not perfect at anything, but still. Maybe I'm the right person for something.

That's open-ended on purpose. Consider it a standing invitation. You know where to find me.

yours,
Holly.