warning: grace needed

Right now I am raw. Aching. Open. Vulnerable. I feel judged. There are people coming to inspect our apartment this week. I will be judged on my mess. My writing group meets tomorrow for the first time in awhile. I will not be judged, but will still feel less than. My first piece will be published this weekend. That writing will be judged by strangers, along with the writing here on my blog which is mentioned in the bio for that piece. My writing will be judged by the friends and family I share it with, along with a judgement of how my life is going. I will be judged by semi-casual acquaintances when I share the link to my writing on facebook - who am I to ask that they pay to read my stuff? I will be judged, and am being judged, by several new bosses... every day. I am judged by my in-laws, and found wanting.

I am judged by myself every day, and quite harshly. I am working five jobs and trying to share my writing, in addition, but I'm never accomplished. I could be, should be. I am kicking myself and working, but somehow always in comparison to my wife. Is that my doing or her doing or my friend's doing or her family's doing? I am lucky to have her, I know that, but I work, too.

I don't think anyone has ever told my wife she is lucky to have me. I, however, hear about how lucky I am to have my wife on almost a weekly basis. And I am. This woman is a saint. She loves me and cleans up after me and listens to my lectures and laughs at my jokes. Am I deemed the lucky one because in my tales she is the one always taking care of everything - I've build my own prison? - or is that really the reality? Do people really believe that? Do they sit around and gossip about our relationship and say "Phoebe is so lucky to have gotten Selina. She's so difficult (or insert other negative descriptor)"?

I guess maybe someone will read this and hopefully offer some protests. But, are they meant? Sometimes I wonder how I appear to others - does my eternal damnation of myself make it easier or harder to be liked and loved? I judge myself because I feel un-appreciated, un-loved, and un-likeable, and I should be able to fix those things. Sometimes it's hard to be confident, to make yourself appealing, to put yourself out there, when you feel so utterly.... unlovely.

And, I know, how much we all hate a pity party. We hate the "woe is me". But at what point do we cross the line between pity and a true hole in our lives? And at what point can we offer another person grace?