Winter Blues

Groan.
I know that complaining about the weather is a little uninspired, but it has to be done. I get a little annoyed when other people complain about the weather to me. "Cold enough out there for ya?" is my absolute hands down favorite. Some day I just want to say "Hell no. I'd really like it to get a little bit colder. I'd like to see what minus sixty feels like." Like who the frick asks that?? It's minus forty out there. I should think that the answer should go without saying. Me, whenever the subject of weather comes up, the same words tumble out of my mouth...
It's supposed to warm up soon...
If I had a dollar for everytime I have used that sentence in the last month... those soothers would be bought and paid for right now let me tell you. Honestly. It seems I'm always telling myself that same sentence in some form or another... I think maybe trying to convince my own self more than anyone else...clinging to that faint hope... It's supposed to be plus four tomorrow, the weather channel says there's a warm front coming, it's supposed to be nice this weekend, they're expecting a break in this cold soon. It's getting damn pathetic already. I'm like some heartsick teenager with a wicked bad unrequitted crush waiting by the phone. "He said he'll call me on the weekend." "Maybe tomorrow he'll call." "Maybe next week" "I think he will call soon."
Just give it up already.
It's friggin cold and no matter what they say on the weather channel it's probably going to be like this for some time to come. I think that the people on the weather channel get their weather reports from some kind of a random weather lottery machine.
So, here I am. Wearing my flannel PJs and moccasins, sequestered indoors yet again, looking outside with loathing and longing, mulling over several things.
Firstly, lately I've noticed something about myself. Yesterday I put on a sweater. I was dissatisfied for a number of reasons- the fabric pulled a little too tightly across the expanse of my hips, there was a little bit of spillage over the top of my pants that seemed conspicous to my own eye. Exasperated, I went to pull the sweater off and continue on to the next one in my daily game of "Let's find something that doesn't make me look fat" in which I invariably come up a loser after spilling the entire contents of my closet on the floor in a heap (a very small heap- even at the best of times when I'm caught up with the laundry) and reluctantly resign myself to wearing something out of simple neccessity. Yesterday Geoff intercepted the game, though, telling me that the white sweater looked really great, to which I mumbled how frumpy I was getting and we argued about this but I wore the damn sweater anyways because I had to get going.
Anyways, the sweater worked out fine. In fact, people told me that I looked like I was losing weight, if anything. So you would think that I would be happy.
And yet.
And this is what I've realized about myself: I just can't seem to take compliments at all whatsoever. I mean, if someone were to come up to me and tell me that I look like shit, I would be like "Thanks, ya, I know. I haven't been getting much sleep lately, it's really starting to show now, isn't it??" But if somone tells me that I look good, I feel distinctly uncomfortable, and not only that, I feel the need to try to convince that person that I do not, in fact, look good and that I have not, in fact, lost weight and that, in fact, my stomach feels slightly reminiscent of bread dough that needs a good kneading, and that the stretch marks are still pretty prominent. It's like I have an inferiority complex.
And when I started to think about it, I started to think about how I always try to 'one down' someone in conversation. Like you know those people who always try to 'one up' you?? OK. For example.
You're like:"My labour was sixteen hours long and really painful and the epidural didn't work and I ended up with second degree tears (this is not my casual conversation, by the way).
And then they're like "Sixteen hours!! I wish!! mine was forty three hours, and I lost so much blood that they had to give me CPR and a blood transfusion, and the baby was eleven-three, so you can imagine how badly I tore. And when they did the epidural they put it in wrong, and I've completely lost feeling in my left leg. I'll be in physio for a while. They don't know if it'll ever come back. And the babys diabetic, by the way. And I have to give her insulin."
Well, I seem to have the same condition, but in the reverse direction. For example, some one would say to me that they're house is a mess. And I'll be like "you should see my house!! I haven't seen my kitchen counter since 2005!! " Or someone will complain about their finances. And I'll be like "you should see my bank account!! It's completely overdrawn, and we have to make a car payment tomorrow, and our cable just got cut off." Or someone will complain about thier husband, and I'll be like "you should see my husband!! He literally does nothing around the house, and he only speaks three spoken words! And you should smell his BO!!"
Well, I guess you get the idea.
Anyways, I've always considered myself a modest person. And I do think that modesty is a really good virtue. I can not stand people who are boastful. "Oh, my husband I don't know what we're going to do with our time share!! We're going to Mexico in January, and then Hawaii in February. I'm not sure we can make it there at all this year!! Isn't that a shame?? Oh, well. It's not really big enough for us, anyways, only four thousand square feet!! Can you imagine!!"
Just makes me want to grab my fork and jam it in thier eye. Like, if your biggest problem is that you can't use your time share property, then you and I should not be in the same room together at all whatsoever. I just can't handle it. But anyways, as I was saying, modesty is a good virtue to have, but I think that maybe it might be OK to once in a while accept a compliment or admit that I have a nice life that I actually enjoy.
And I wonder sometimes if we're programmed by society to feel this kind of self depreciation?? Look at the magazines. "Lose ten pounds!!" "Upgrade your kitchen!!" "Make your husband happy in bed!!" Look at the TV shows. Even the geeky science detective types have glossy straight hair with expensive highlights and they walk around crime scenes in stilletto heels and low cut T Shirts displaying the kind of cleavage that I'll only ever have when Lex is overdue for a feeding.
It's amazing that we feel good about ourselves ever.
With my children, I use a strategy called "praise the good, ignore the bad" I think somewhere along the way, I've adopted the opposite strategy for myself "ignore the good, exaggerate the bad."
So I'm going to start being more gentle with myself.
Starting tomorrow. When it warms up outside.