The Girl Without A Face

I’m already back at the airport, waiting for my flight home. As I’m sitting, waiting to board, I’m reflecting back on my day yesterday. In general, how much I’ve grown. I know, I know, my last post was all about taking steps back and crying in my rental car on the way back to the hotel, but bear with me on my thought process. I’m clearly working through some anxieties.

Before I went to my work event yesterday I was incredibly nervous. But I’ve learned a few tools in the past couple of years to calm myself. One of them is to talk to myself in a way that would calm me down. I used to look for soothing outside of myself, I would run to my mom for instance, and then she would rile me up even more. It would be this endless cycle of stress and anxiety in my head when in the beginning I was just trying to seek out reassurance for a stress inducing event. But now me and my mom are no contact. And yes, I have my friend, and also my sister, who have been wonderful. But those relationships are not built on co-dependency. Therefore, I’m left to my own devices to soothe myself. About an hour before I was about to leave, as I was getting ready, that voice in my head telling me how fat I was was the one I was fighting. The one telling me that these co-workers I’ve never met would look at me with disgust upon meeting me in person. That my tattoos would instantly make me lose my credibility. That I wouldn’t be able to find my way into the building. As these thoughts crept in, instead of feeding into them, I looked myself in the mirror and I said, “You got this. If they don’t like you it’s their loss. What’s the worst that can happen? Take a deep breath”. And you know what it worked. And to be honest, I’ll confess, I talked to myself the whole way there. It calmed me down. I was nervous walking in, but I made it through the meeting. I even golfed for the first time (outside of putt-putt of course). I noticed I felt calmer than I would’ve in the past. Before I knew it the meeting was over and I was left with the rest of the day. On to more thrift shopping, I found some wonderful things. When I started to get hungry, I said you know what? I’m going to take myself out on a date. I went and sat in a restaurant all by myself. This is a huge feat for me, someone who has lived with lifelong anxiety (I’m sure I’m not the only one out there who’s had a fear of eating out alone). I felt so confident and calm while I was there, I barely even looked at my phone. I just looked out the window, enjoyed my food, looked around, took in the sounds. I even contemplated going out to the movies with myself, but the times didn’t line up and so I went to one more store then back to the hotel.

I reflected back on the day. How in the matter of 24 hours I had gone so far out of my comfort zone. I traveled for work for the first time in years, with a new company, for the first time in sales. First time meeting this group of people in person. I explored a city all on my own. Navigated airports. Struck up conversations with strangers. Took myself out on a date. Thrifted some fun clothes. The me from 10 years ago would be really proud of the me I’m turning into now.