I feel like Sally Field, “I can’t deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!”

I really, really have a hard time with this. From childhood where I was just someone my mother was forced by society to take care of, to my teen years where it seemed the only way I could get attention was to be easy, to years of being married to a handsome man whose tepid responses to my own insecurities just reinforced them. I still sometimes feel I’m tolerated at best.

Butt (cuz I have a big butt) things are getting better. It’s getting easier. I’m happier, friends are telling me I look fantastic (and I almost cried) and I’m really feeling like a whole person. I’m starting to believe but it’s really hard.

Certain people recently pared down their twitter friends lists to real friends and I’m on the lists. Other people have actually introduced me as someone they like to other peeps. Little comments here and there have helped. These seem like little things, but they’re chipping away slowly but surely at my wall.

I know I have a wall. I have a hard time making friends because I know they won’t like me so I don’t put myself out there right away. I may seem standoffish but it’s really protection. It’s not that I don’t like you . . . I’m having a hard time believing you’ll ever like me.

Damn this sounds so whiny! I, who have no patience for whiners, hate being so needy of reassurance.

This is just to let my friends know I hear them and appreciate their efforts and it is working. I’m getting there. It’s not all bluff and bravado anymore. I’m stronger and more confident than before.

Thanks isn’t good enough.