Here I am, and here we go.

I'm back. Maybe for good this time. We'll see if it sticks.

It has been one emotional week-- maybe one of the most important weeks of my life. Without going into too much detail, I have finally made the conscious decision to love myself for exactly what and who I am, and have taken steps to manifest that self-conviction in my everyday life.

-I lost one of the most important people in my life to date. Well ok, to say I "lost" him is misleading. Makes him sound like a set of car keys. I didn't exactly misplace him, but he's not my boyfriend anymore, so what do I care where he is?

-I started going to therapy again. I won't be blogging a lot about the progress I make in this area, for (obviously) extremely personal reasons, but I wanted to put it somewhere, because I need practice in the art of asking for help, and this is a good example of that practice. I want to be proud of my decision.

These are both very serious, very emotional decisions for me. At the risk of sounding like a drama queen, I needed to put them somewhere, to tack them to the proverbial Great Online Refrigerator Door, like a report card or an art project, as a reward, as proof that I can --that I do-- love myself.

Appreciating oneself, not for the contribution one makes to other peoples' lives, but solely for the value of one's own life, is a tremendously hard thing to re-learn, and although I do not feel I've lost the skill of loving myself completely, I have some ground to cover.

I've made progress toward existence as an independent woman of conviction this week, however scary and heartbreaking some of it may have been. Right now I feel like I got hit by a bus, but in the week to come I will practice being proud of myself for standing for what I believe in, asking for the respect I deserve, and being unashamed to ask for help.