What do My Life and a Hoover Have in Common?

Seriously...although the answer is "they both suck," that would not be a totally accurate description.

What Others Say About Me: Tenacious, loving, caring, bright, good sense of humor, fun, open, honest, creative, gifted, talented, compassionate, faithful, courageous, intelligent, trustworthy, sensitive, nuturing, patient, encourager, giving, good organizer.

What [strong]I[/strong] Say About Me: Selfish, whiny, needy, fat, ugly, stupid, waste of space, failure, self-centered, weak, scared, lame, lazy, irrelevant, bad, defective, damaged goods, unloveable, inept, ungrateful, shallow, disgusting, boring, dumb, lame, disrespectful, mean, self-destructive, hurtful, vapid, airhead, repulsive, blob, a fraud, loser, incompetent.

Rob and I didn't get here today...but the foundation was set today for us to have this conversation. I know in my head that we are all one list or the other (at times) and the truth is someplace in the middle. But, as I told him, it is easier to be a "performing monkey" at times so people see the first list and not realize that what they are looking at is the second.

We both said today we are thankful for the time we had Friday...and we built on it today. There were still silences...but they weren't as uncomfortable...he gave me time and space to process what was said before I shared my next thought...that was new. He's never been really pushy...but there are times where I have felt I needed an answer "NOW." I would say I need time to form a thought or needed to think about something before sharing it with him and he would push to hear some of it right then and there. Today he simply asked me to promise I would call him as soon as I could.

So, I did...and told him, "No matter what I do, no matter what I accomplish at work and who I make happy there -- the prevailing feeling is that I am a waste of space and total fraud. Underneath the veneer of competency is a huge blob of nothing. A nothing that has to be punished for waking up in the morning.

It is easier to remember what a loser I am and have moments of "brilliance," than to have people think I am this wonderful person and then fail them."

Thursday should be interesting.

We talked through my VM to him on friday and that was really good as well. Some of the stuff he said to me on Friday he realized was confusing and that some of it is just questions he has of our time together.

So...in some ways it is like beginning all over again...but in some ways it's just going deep like we have been trying to do.