50 Shades of Me.

I’m not wearing pants. I have lacy panties on sporting holes on both sides because I’m anything but careful. Always getting dressed in a rush or running late.

My hair is greasy and lays in a fallen bun on the side of my head, not even the top, and my face needs to be washed.

I’m wearing a crop top yellow Wu-Tang shirt that is flecked with oil from the pesto pasta I ate earlier and no bra.

I am anything but flawless.

Which is why I have been avoiding writing a list of things I love about myself all week. I just figured that I wouldn’t have much to say, but I’m doing it as a practice of self-love.

I assume I’ll have ten nice things to say. I can manage ten.

I imagine myself opening the Word document and staring at the flashing cursor as I struggle to think of likeable qualities, I can’t even touch any loveable ones. I imagine feeling embarrassed as ten and twenty and thirty minutes pass and I’ll blank by five likeable qualities.

But I surprise myself. The loveable qualities pour out of me, until I’m up to fifty. I keep thinking, okay, that’s probably it. But then there’s another, and another, and I don’t even touch the likeable ones.

Because I’m focused on the loveable.

Focused on the love.

Focused on the self.

Focused on me.

–S.