The Last Word

A couple of blogs ago, I wrote about how I'd been thinking one of my many flaws is that I have to have the last word all the time. It's been on my mind a lot, because I find myself in a situation where I can't have the last word with someone, but I still really, really want to.

Last night, just before I fell asleep, I remembered part of a song I used to listen to (and scream along to) a lot when my mom was sick (I think around the time that she had her second surgery). I couldn't remember all the words or even who it was by ("Break Me Out" by the Rescues) and I was too tired to look it up right then. I forgot all about it until just a little while ago.

I went through my iTunes library and I found it and I remembered how much screaming along to that song had helped. I started going through my entire library making a playlist of songs that helped through my mom's illness and death (most of them are scream along songs or songs that, for whatever reason, make me want to do a little dance no matter where I am).

I'm only to the Es. I just rediscovered "Effortlessly" by Sister Hazel. It starts out, "I won't be so hard on me today / I start to take myself so seriously / Shouldn't be so hard to be / Effortlessly."

And I remembered how I maybe didn't articulate my point very well in the "You're So Last Summer" post.

The point was that sometimes, I am too hard on myself. Sometimes, I forget to take up space, to speak up for myself, to treat myself the way I treat other people. (Kind of funny that the Golden Rule needs to get reversed occasionally.)

The point was that I take the idea "keep working on love" very seriously -- which is why I do so many wacky things with my friends and I why I write so many sappy emails and send so many things in the mail to people and why I give so many hugs. Every single one of us needs to know that we are loved, and I try not to let the people I love forget that I do. (I am not always great at this. Keeping this blog helps remind me that it's an ongoing project, that "love is not leisure, it is work.")

The thing is, sometimes I forget that it's important to love yourself. Maybe that kind of love doesn't need to be as big and loud and grandiose as the love you show others, but it still needs some attention from time to time.

 (And maybe now I can feel like I had the last word on this, and that might help me feel a little better, too.)