100 Truths

This is a list that has taken me a few days to write. My sister-in-law wrote one, and I was truly moved by some of the things she shared that I never knew about her. I have been doing some deep reflection ever since because there are things about myself that I don’t like, but that I can’t or won’t change. This is who I am. I can’t apologize for that. It’s hard to share some of the things you don’t like about yourself, or some of the things you wish were different. I am not where I want to be. But maybe by facing these truths I will be able to work on these things and become the person I want to be.

I encourage you to write your own list. You never know what you might discover about yourself.

1. I am an extremely emotional person. Before having Reese I felt like I was on a constant roller coaster or up-days and down-days and I never knew when I woke up in the morning if I was going to feel normal. I like to think that Reese has made me (for the most part) permanently normal.

2. Sometimes I forget that I’m a mom now, and the restrictions that places on my life.

3. My guilty pleasure is curling up and watching episodes of Dawson’s Creek on DVD when Mark’s not around and I’ve had a rough day/week. I have (and I hate to admit this) all 6 seasons on DVD. For some reason it always stirs feelings inside of me that take me back to High School and how it felt to be 16.

4. Sometimes I don’t clean the bathroom for a month. I HATE cleaning the bathroom.

5. I’m so terrified that I am going to be an awful mom that sometimes I think I block it out entirely and I don’t try as hard as I should at being a better parent because I don’t like to do things that I can’t do well.

6. I used to be a dancer and I don’t think I’ve ever quite let that go. I still want to dance and I can’t accept that that period in my life is over. It makes me feel like a part of me has died. It’s sad.:(

7. I care what people think of me. A LOT.

8. I also am extremely envious of the people who don’t seem to care at all what other people think of them.

9. I like to think that my strengths are being outgoing, positive, and caring.

10. My weaknesses are probably being impatient, judgmental, and stubborn.

11. I have an extreme weakness for purchasing things that I think will make my home look nicer and more “homey”. It drives Mark crazy.

12. I wish I was musically talented. I especially wish I could sing.

13. I’m extremely jealous of my sisters. Each of them, for different reasons. I always feel like they have qualities and talents I wish I had.

14. The only person in the world that I tell everything to besides Mark is my best friend Elena. She’s the one person I have met in my life that I feel like I can share the horrible awful truths with and she won’t judge me.

15. No matter how hard I try I always seem to have dirt under my fingernails.

16. I buy lots of clothes that represent what I wish to wore on a day-to-day basis, and then I just end up in comfortable sweats every day with a closet full of hardly-worn clothes.

17. I wish I was a better photographer. I wish I had more time and energy to spend on learning how to become better.

18. I equate being in shape with being successful, loved and respected. Consciously I know that this is not true, but subconsciously I tend to blame failure in any one of these areas on my weight.

19. High School was one of the best times of my life. I sometimes look back on that time longingly and wish I was once again 16 and sneaking out of my house instead of 24 and going to bed at 8:30pm.

20. Yes, I did sneak out of my house when I was a teenager. I was a bit of a wild child.:)

21. Mark is unlike any guy I ever dated before, and he’s the perfect guy for me. I continue to be amazed at how good he is about loving and caring for me that way I need him to.

22. Mark is smarter than me. A LOT smarter than me.

23. I can’t go on a vacation and leave the house messy. I think about it the whole time we are vacationing and it bugs me.

24. When I get into bed at night I can’t sleep if all the covers are a messy pile on top of me. I have to smooth out the covers and pull them up to my chin and then fold them neatly over before I can sleep.

25. Sometimes while driving in the car listening to the radio I totally break down in tears listening to certain songs. Like “Jesus take the Wheel” or “You’re Gonna Miss This”. I’m a basket case. Country music is emotional ok?!

26. Marrying into Mark’s family has completely change my life.

27. I HATE awkward silences. So if you ever think I talk too much, it’s just because I can’t stand the silence!

28. I also tend to gossip. It’s something I hate about myself and I’m trying to work on.

29. I knew since Mark and I got married that I wanted to name our first daughter Reese.

30. I am a horrible cook.

31. I also hate to cook. I still like to imagine that someday when I kids are older I will cook dinner every night for our family, but I just don’t see how that will happen right now.

32. I’m horrible with money. I like to work hard and then not worry about how much things cost.

33. My first pregnancy and birth was traumatizing for me and I feel scared to do it again.

34. I’m also scared to be a mother to more than just Reese. I don’t feel like I’m a great mom and it scares me to have another child when I don’t even feel like I’m doing a great job with the one I have.

35. I cannot sit for hours on the couch watching TV unless I have an activity like folding laundry or stuffing envelopes. I can’t sit still for that long.

36. I have not cut my hair in over a year.

37. I whiten my teeth in photos of me in photoshop because I am embarrassed of my less-than-white smile.

38. I’m proud that I am a woman-of-many-talents. I like to think that I am capable of doing many things and/or picking things up easily.

39. I love living in California.

40. Someday I desperately want to live in a small beach town in a beautiful home on the beach so I can look out my widow and see the ocean and Mark and I can walk on the beach together every day.

41. I love freshly laundered towels and sheets. I also really love using dryer sheets to make fresh laundry smell even better but Mark hates it because he says dryer sheets are such a waste of money.:)

42. I love to read. My favorite book is “The Red Tent” by Anita Diamont, and I have read it at least 10 times.

43. I am horribly disorganized.

44. I really like my green eyes. They are one of my few features that I would never change if given the chance.

45. I desperately want to be “that mom” when our kids get older. You know-the one who is so fun and everyone wants to hang out at our house and the mom who still looks good and is cool?

46. When my girls are teenagers I badly want to be able to share clothes with them.

47. I am a working mom because I am afraid that I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I didn’t.

48. I am also a working mom because I need to feel valued and important outside my home.

49. I don’t make a lot of plans for the future like family traditions I want us to observe, rules I want to place for our kids, or anything like that. I get overwhelmed easily and just avoid thinking about those things because it’s more than I want to deal with right now.

50. Competing in my first Triathlon was the first time in a long time that I felt proud of myself.

51. I like to buy books, not just borrow them or check them out from the library. Then I read them over and over until the pages are dirty from eating while reading, and wrinkly from reading while taking a bubble bath.

52. I light scented candles around my house when I want the house to feel homey.

53. I have a really hard time saying “no”.

54. I like to think that I eat healthy.

55. I look forward to the times of the day when Reese is napping and I get to be alone.

56. I also love to walk into Reese’s room when she wakes up from a nap and she is standing in her crib smiling through her pacifier at me.

57. I don’t think I put my family first enough.

58. I LOVE to go out to restaurants to eat.

59. I am NOT a morning person. In fact, if you wake me before 8am I am liable to bite your head off.

60. I’m terrified of having a disgustingly messy house when people stop by unexpectedly.

61. I love to write. When I was a teenager I used to keep tons of notebook full of my feelings and thoughts. I also have faithfully kept journals since I was 13 and I like to flip through them sometimes and remember how things used to be.

62. I am a person who hates change. I spend a great deal of time looking back on the past and wishing things could be that way again rather than being excited for the future.

63. Having a boring life really frightens me. I want my life to be filled with excitement, growth, and adventures.

64. I want to compete in a triathlon after the birth of each of my children.

65. I desperately want to go to Europe someday and I regret that it was something Mark and I did not do before starting our family.

66. I think I have “fat lady” arms and I hate them.

67. I don’t like people who complain a lot.

68. I am a bit of a show-off. It stems from my insecurity. I feel the need to prove to people that I’m fun/accomplished/talented/special.

69. I love sushi. I mean I REALLY LOVE SUSHI!

70. I’m afraid of dying before Mark and him falling in love again with another woman.

71. Someday I would love to go back to school to be a registered nurse.

72. I want to be an amazing quilter someday, like my mom.

73. I’m afraid that I won’t know what to do with my children when they are older. I am scared that I won’t know how be a cool mom, or how to talk to them and listen to them in a way that will make them want to tell me their secrets.

74. When I was 13 I joined a performing company called Starmakers that changed my life forever. It was in this dance company that I got my first boyfriend, my first kiss, I made the best girlfriends of my teenage years that I still keep in touch with, I learned about the birds and the bees from our awesome director, and I fell in love with dancing.

75. My dream is to one day have my own performing company like Starmakers where I would take an ordinary group of misfit middle school students and turn them into amazing performers and help them grow up along the way.

76. I really love the beach. I love standing on the beach with my feet near the water so that every time a wave comes in the water touches my feet and then recedes back and my feet slowly sink deeper in the sand with every wave.

77. I’m terrified of failing at life.

78. I am totally claustrophobic. So much so that I can’t sleep in confining clothing or even hooded sweatshirts. I hate sitting in either the middle or window seats on airplanes. And when I watch scenes in movies where the actor is in confining places it totally freaks me out.

79. Oddly enough though, I love sleeping when it’s cold in my room and I have layers of blankets piled on top of me. I always sleep so deeply that way.

80. I hate when the different foods on my dinner plate touch. I’m serious. I won’t eat the parts that touch unless they go together-like bread and mashed potatoes, but I can’t stand it when the juice from my fruit salad touches my mashed potatoes.

81. I give up on things when they get too overwhelming. I have stated before that I’m a bit of a quitter and the reason is usually because I’m not willing to put in the effort, especially if I think I will fail. I only like to do things that I can excel at, and that I am interested in.

82. I hate public speaking. Surprising huh? While I love to talk and will usually be the loudest person in the room, put me in front of everyone listening with a microphone in my hand and I freeze.

83. I really love the color turquoise. My eye is always drawn to clothes, bags, artwork, and home furnishings that color. I just love it.

84. I  love to play board and card games as opposed to Mark who really loves to play video games. I don’t really love playing video games and Mark don’t love board games so much. It’s a bit frustrating since neither of us want to play the other’s games.

85. I deeply loath spiders. I should have never seen the movie “Arachnophobia”. Scared the crap out of me.

86. I still cry every time I see “Father of the Bride”.

87. I am afraid that Reese will be less intelligent/developed in the future because I don’t spend time every day with her singing the ABC’s and playing with blocks and reading to her.

88. I am obsessed with Pottery Barn. I would pretty much deck our entire house out in Pottery Barn if we were rich. My dream house is bright and airy with a big great room, and large jetted tub in the master bath, and warm toffee colored leather couches from Pottery Barn. Mark makes fun of the way I pour over the Pottry Barn catalog whenever it comes in the mail.

89. If I could have any super power it would be telepathy. I always wish I knew what people really thought. On the other hand, having that power, you may find out things you wish you didn’t know.

90. I hate my freckles. I REALLY REALLY hate my freckles.

91. I generally make friends easily, but I rarely make “best friends”.

92. My favorite vacation ever was going on a cruise to Mexico with my sister Kellee and her boyfriend and Mark. We had a blast and it was great to feel so glamorous and fancy going on a cruise.

93. Sometimes I wish Mark and I had no TV or computer and we just came home in the evenings and spent time together without any electronics.

94. My favorite memories would have to be 1) the first time I heard Reese cry and I broke down in tears, 2) my first Valentines day with Mark, and 3) Senior Dinner Dance in High School.

95. I almost never leave the house without make up on. Before having Reese I would have never even considered it, but since having a baby I have become a bit more lax in the primping department.

96. I love wearing high heeled shoes. It makes me feel sexy.

97. I was Mark’s fist kiss, and his first real girlfriend. How cool is that?

98. I wish I spent more time on the gospel aspect of my life. It should take more of a priority and I don’t put in the effort to make it such.

99. I worry about what kind of role model Mark and I will be to our children.

100. I love my life. I don’t want to sound conceited or prideful, but I truly am happy with my life. I feel so lucky and blessed.