I have a smile on my face and I feel beautiful.

I’m tired.

I’m exhausted.

My feet hurt.

I’m feeling sore.

I have a smile on my face.

I have been whining and bitching and complaining about my life for so damned long, I’ve forgotten that I am a capable person. I had also forgotten that I am a positive and optimistic person. I let go of my confidence for far too long. I have personality characteristics that I had begun to hate, when I used to love them. But today, I am smiling and I am willing to feel good again.

This past couple of weeks, I had been engaged in a new job – a second job, actually. I’ve been working as a server at a Restaurant and Taproom a few miles from where I live. The new employer has agreed to allow me to work evenings and weekends, so I can maintain working at my primary job. I am finally seeing a pathway through the murkiness of my financial situation. It’s not a permanent solution, and I know this, but it’s going to provide me a way to stay afloat until I can find a more permanent solution.

Of course, that word “permanent” is a bit of a farce, isn’t it? I think I got too comfortable in my previous career and simply made the assumption that I would be able to do that forever. The mere idea of permanence is delusion I think we tell ourselves to reassure ourselves that everything will be okay. I have always believed that everything is temporary and nothing is permanent, but I have not lived as if that’s the case. No, I have hung on to crap that I should have let go a lot time ago. And now, I think I’m finally beginning to do that.

I feel good about my acceptance. I feel good that I can say to myself that it’s okay to feel the way I feel about life, the things around me, myself, my relationship, whatever. It’s okay to feel. I used to think that feeling was a weakness, that I shouldn’t feel. On some level, I think that I was merely avoiding the things in my life that would impact my feelings in a negative way. But now, I’m beginning to embrace my emotional state as something that simply is. As much as I hate the phrase, I think I have finally understood that sometimes “It is what it is”.

I know that I am struggling. I know that I have challenges right now. But I also believe I am facing them. I’m being positive. I’m giving myself a break and I’m not being overly critical of myself. Do I see a light at the end of the tunnel? Not quite yet, but there is a path in front of me and I can either stay in the dark or I can feel my way down this path and see where it leads.

I feel good today.

I feel positive today.

I feel empowered today.

I feel a sense of happiness today.

Today, I feel beautiful.