Until I Find Serenity

I accept a lot about other people. People are marvelously different, and while there are most definitely things I do not accept, on the whole I have an open mind. Or so I like to think.

For all that highfalutin talk, there are things about me that I have trouble accepting. Things about my own body, my person, my personality that are wrong, bad, simply not okay. I make efforts to change the things that make me unhappy, but at a certain point those efforts are more painful than their intended target. And then you have to accept less than perfection, less than unblemished happiness.

And so:
1. I do not have a very thin body type. Thanks to Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, etc. I can be thin, but it's not the way my genes have intended me to be. To be perfectly honest, I look better. As I've been gaining weight, I see this and I accept it. Starting now.
2. I am obsessive-compulsive. I worry and I can't stop. This isn't an admission of defeat - far from it. It's acceptance that this is a long-term problem that requires persistent effort. Fair? of course not, but that's how the cookie crumbles.
3. I have an eating disorder. It may be, as Laura says, "in remission," but it is still there and it is still a struggle. As with the OCD, I'm not giving up. But I am being easier on myself about it.
4. It sucks to be far away from someone you love. It's okay to be sad about it. It's even more okay to know that he misses you too, and to trust that you're tough enough to make it through the time apart. Additionally, being sad sometimes does not preclude being tough.

This is a short list. I'll think of other things later.