XO

I once bought these letters to give as a gift to someone I was dating:



We broke up before I ever passed the gift along, and I have since installed them as part of the eclectic group of items that makes up my home decor. An A/C repairman once mistook them for sorority letters; I corrected him without letting him know how far off the mark he was at connecting me with any sorority.

The letters have actually come to mean something very different to me now; they certainly are not a reminder of the person for whom they were originally intended. Now they remind me to love myself and to be gentle with myself. I had no idea how hard I am on myself until a few years ago, when I actually shared some of my blaming thoughts and feelings with a few trusted friends, only to learn that they felt I was not giving myself any credit for the good things. Not only that, I wasn't cutting myself any slack at all as a human being who makes mistakes and bad choices sometimes, and who cannot control much of what goes on in the world.

I have worked hard since then to change the way I look at things, with varying success. But as I try to tip the scales in the other direction, I think I have already seen a measure of success just by being aware of these tendencies in myself and working to change them.