I’m wearing a couple pretty, dainty gold rings today.

For me this is such a small but important thing. I remember back before I ever started living a healthier lifestyle, when I couldn’t wear rings. I remember going to a store in high school trying to find a ring in the right size and nothing fit. There were no rings in the entire store that would fit over my large, swollen fingers. It hurt so deeply that I wasn’t able to wear rings like all the “normal” girls.

Ten years later, I can walk into any store and buy a ring to wear. I don’t have to worry about not finding rings that fit. In fact, I can usually find quite a few rings that are too big.

Part of my self-care this week was taking a trip to the mall to buy some new rings.

Rings make me feel girly and happy and pretty. A small pleasure, but they provide me with a lot of happiness. They remind me that I’m cute and fun and worthy of putting in effort to look nice.

Through periodic battles with depression I’ve wrestled with a self-hatred living inside of me that makes it hard to remember those things. It’s something I always revisit when I’m at my lowest and it’s something that is always lurking at the edges of my consciousness. When I’m struggling, I’ll refuse to take care of myself. I won’t shower for a few days, I won’t dress up, I won’t exercise to make myself feel better, I won’t put in effort into what I look like or how I’m cared for. I abandon myself because it feels like I’m not worth taking care of properly. 

Right now I’m focused on learning how to let those old thought patterns and habits go. It’s exhausting and it’s something I’ve been carrying with me since I was 10.  I’m honestly quite over it.

My recent quest has been fully grounded in the ideas of self-care and self-love ALL THE TIME. I realized recently that this is the most important thing I can do right now and forever. Even now that mentality that I don’t *deserve* good things and I am not *worthy* of good things pops up. It’s all such bullshit, leftover from those formative years when I was told such things and hated myself so fiercely. My inner dialogue easily defaults to that negative baseline and it’s something I really want to change.

So all this self-care and self-love stuff is a new priority. It means treating myself how I think I should be treated. Doing things for myself that should be done rather than ignoring my needs. Giving myself the ability to enjoy things instead of holding back because  they are “undeserved” for some reason. Treating myself to things I enjoy and allowing myself to enjoy them. Going to the gym not to lose weight but because it feels good and relieves stress and makes me happy. Doing the things that make me happy.

I’ve obviously still got work to do, but I’m kinda loving this girl that wears a dress on Fridays and buys herself cute rings and schedules a massage for Saturday.