Rich

When I lived in Connecticut my boyfriend and would go out on the atlantic on his friend's boat.

It wasn't a big or a fancy  boat, just a little speed boat, but tooling around on the water , past all of the big, beautiful homes, with the WARM SUN beaming down on my skin and the cool breeze in my hair made me feel like the richest girl in the world and all I needed was the water a boat, some good tunes and a few people I loved spending time with.

today reminded me of that feeling, we had charlotte's 1st birthday party, it was a last minute, kind of thrown together affair, we had pizza, a few guests and a deliscious cake made by a friend of mine, at one point during the party, as I sat and watched my friend's daughter play with Charlotte and talked to a friend I hadn't seen in awhile, I thought to myself, "I am so rich! Rich in friends, family and life in general. Who needs money when there are so many things to enjoy that don't reqiuire a cent?"

Confidence

I've noticed something: When I become suddenly irrationally afraid of something I've been doing for months without a problem, like the war I had with the stairs a few months back,It is because I suddenly stmble upon a problem when accomplishing the task, and as a result, I lose confidence in myself. I've never been over flowing with confidence, I'm more of a fake it til you make it type girl. So when I suddenley start having some balance issues when climbing the stairs, my confidence falters and I start worse-case scenario-ing, which just makes me more afraid and more shaky and nervous when I'm trying to accomplish whaever it is that's scaring me. The other night I was in the process of not facing a common fear, going into the bathroom, now our bathroom that is upstairs is the one I use at night. The doorway is right at the top of the steps and I have to turn lrft to get into that now turning left is not my forte, so I always end up getting my arm  stuck on the door and because I get freaked out my  left leg muscles get spastic so I can't bend it and I end up fumbling around in the doorway terrified of losing my balance and falling down the stairs, so I turned around back to my bedroom, to put my leg brace back on, I always feel much more secure and stable with my brace on. But I dtopped myself, I said, "You're never going to get over this if you don't at least try, you don't want to have to put yor brace on everytime you go to the bathroom. So I did it, I faced my fear and got into the bathroom with no problem and I hav every night since. I always give myself a little patt on the back after I perform a perfect bsthroom entry and I give myself a little pep talk on my to the bathroom and I tslk myself through the procedure. Si I figue if I can keep believing in myself and facing my fears, there ain't notin' I can't do.

self-confidence:fail.

The thing that has taken the biggest beating due to the stroke is most certainly my self-confidence. I no longer feel as smart, witty or attractivre as I used to. I try to remind myself of everything I've accomplished thus far when I'm feeling this way. but everytime I misplace something important because I wasn't paying close attention to what I was doing I feel like an even bigger dolt. I try to hold my head up high when I'm out in public because I have nothing to be ashamed of, in fact, I think I've handled this thing a whole thing lot better than I think a lot of people would, but all I have to do every night is think about all of the things I did today that seven months ago I didn't think I would ever do again; Work, stand for 40 minutes, continue working on my training project at work, hold my baby while standing and walking, coirrectly answer a customer's question, remember a frequent customer's name. So all in all, I'm not doing badly at all, I just feel so disconnected from the headstrong, smart, intelligent and important person I used to be, I have to constantly remind myself that I will be all of those things again.