You're So Vain...

I think that possibly planning is my love language.

I know technically that's not a love language (my real love languages are acts of service and quality time) but planning is definitely my thing. My favorite thing.

I love color coding, label makers, really great pens (Pilot G-2 07 are my favorite), Erin Condren, Leuchtturm 1917 notebooks...I could go on, but you get the picture.

It has also been brought to my attention that I follow a really rigid schedule. I can't really emphasize enough that I do that for a reason-setting tight boundaries around my days helps to calm my natural tendency toward anxiety. Knowing what is ahead is soothing, even if it's just my morning schedule of coffee, devotions, workout, shower, and makeup.

I have always been this way. My mother has told me many times that when I was little, if she just said to me, "Joy, put your shoes on, we're leaving," I had a meltdown. But if she told me, "In ten minutes we are going to leave," I was perfectly fine.

Is it any wonder that I fell to pieces over my world being turned all upside down 2 1/2 years ago?

So, anyway, I like to know what's coming. And for the most part I can control that-my morning, my job, the girls' schedules. But stepping into this world of dating-that I can't control. It has me a bit freaked out.

Here's the thing-I have never, ever done this before. Nick and I went on just a few actual "dates" and then moved in together. Until the divorce, I thought nothing of that. We were in our early twenties, with few real responsibilities, going about creating a life together the way that we assumed everyone did. It simply did not occur to me to even question the pace at which falling in love happened.

So, fast forward 15 years, and Nick leaves, and I spiral down a dark hole, and spend tons of time grieving and healing and I have finally emerged into a place of sheer joy and contentment-and there is a part of me that just wants to stay there, you know? I like me. I'm perfectly capable of taking myself on a great date-I have no problem going out to the movies and to dinner by myself. I enjoy my own company.

But there is a part of me-a part of me that frankly I have pushed away for most of my life-that enjoys attention. It's hard for me to admit-if you know me at all, you know that I'm normally most comfortable hiding in a corner-but I can't lie that I do enjoy it when people compliment me on my looks. It's not something that I'm used to-I was never the girl asked to the dance when I was in high school. Looking back, I don't think that I was all that different looking then, I was just really shy and uncomfortable in my own skin. I think-I hope-that what people are responding to when they say I look nice is the fact that I have at least a slight confidence in myself anymore.

This week I uploaded a bunch of pictures to my Facebook page because I wanted to delete them off of my phone to free up space (Betsy has since shown me that all of my pictures are backed up to the cloud, and therefore this was completely unnecessary), and I somehow uploaded a picture of me in my personal favorite dress, which is also very short. Too short, my mother thinks. Somehow Facebook must have put it on the newsfeed and as of my writing this, it has 43 likes and rather a few comments (all blessedly nice).

Now, on the one hand, I hate for anyone to think that I am so vain that I would post such a picture of myself. But on the other, 43 likes for one picture is sort of a nice compliment? And if you have seen this picture, and do indeed think that my skirt is too short, well, then, you have good company in my mom.

My point with all of this blather is this-this whole dating thing is like posting a picture times a thousand.

After all, just because I like my own company, it doesn't mean at all that anyone else will.

If you know me well, you know that I over think every single possible thing in my life. I analyze and fret and worry to a ridiculous degree if someone likes me. I have a terrible tendency to want everyone to like me, and I know that isn't possible, and even that there are people who do indeed like me but who don't necessarily love everything that I do. And that's all normal, completely normal, and it is not healthy to tie myself in knots over things that I cannot change.

In my Bible study we are talking about taking time to rest, to stop, to contemplate. My mind keeps focusing on the Israelites, wandering around in the desert, being granted the miracle of manna from heaven but only as much as they needed for that one day. Every day they had to trust that that manna would be there. If I had been an Israelite, you can bet that I would have laid awake every night, worried that maybe tomorrow the manna wouldn't be there.

Trusting this process-this process of turning myself inside out and figuring out who to be and how to be and why exactly I'm like that and hoping that eventually somehow someone will come along who thinks this bundle of anxiety and insecurity is right up his alley-it's hard.

It's hard but it's important. Much as I like my own company, there are times when it's lonely. When I remember what it was like to have someone to talk to, to hang out with, to laugh with. And so that is the road that I am electing to take, much as these next bends scare me.

Someday, I tell myself, I'll look back this road and realize that all of these curves were leading me right to wherever it is that I belong.