At what point do we start to believe that what we are is not only good enough, but maybe even a little great?
Do we ever completely believe it?
From a very young age I didn’t feel pretty or popular or like I fit in. I would hold on to my best friends so tightly because I assumed they were looking over my shoulder for someone better. I talked really fast because I was afraid no one would listen for very long. Looking back, how boring could I possibly have been? How unworthy of friendship and love at 10 or 16 or 21? How much less pretty was I really, than the popular girls? Although I didn’t realize it at the time, I wasn’t popular because it served me well. I had a lot invested in not being part of the cool crowd. When I did something completely humiliating like peeing in my pants in the 7th grade because my math teacher, Mrs. McGirt wouldn’t let me go to the restroom, I just hid behind not being popular. The whole school isn’t whispering or snickering. They don’t even know who I am. It took me decades to even think about that without shame and now I’m telling the whole world. All 8 of you. Life is full of moments that sting, like bees in the backyard, like ants at a picnic, we can’t escape them. And we think we’ll never recover from them, but we do. I did. Somewhere around the time I realized I could tell the people who really love me that I peed in my pants when I was thirteen. Thirteen! According to my rabbi I was an adult! And they laugh. With me. Not at me. And a picnic without ants? Just some potato salad on a blanket.

Picnic carynjune