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Love oneself

I have found a new barometer by which to judge my actions, or rather, it is an involuntary barometer that is improving me perhaps without my say. For every weak thing I do or begin to do, I ask myself if I would admire myself for it. I have felt so critical of myself lately, so ugly, so awful, and out of it has sprung this quest to improve myself. I don't want to become a slave to style magazines; rather, I could not admire myself for doing that. At the same time, I want to look right and decent and keep from embarrassing myself. I feel like my hygeine is always falling short, just like the housework. Every time I turn around, there's hair where hair shouldn't be, there's stuff under my toenails, my tee shirts are shrinking up and showing my stomach; to say nothing of my wildly oxidizing jewelry, scuffed shoes, &c. I don't understand why I don't see anyone else with these problems! Do they spend all their time at home cleaning their jewelry and ironing their shirts? What am I supposed to do?

And I think we should be saving up our money to go to Japan, but all of a sudden I hate all of my clothes, and I'm trying to chill out, but I honestly don't think I'll be able to face this winter without a new coat. I have three and I can't bear them: The sleeve is torn on my black trenchcoat, my silver puffcoat is too small, and my brown duster doesn't match any of my clothes. I need black. That's so selfish! There are people who need coats and I have three, and I want a different one.

I know I need to just cool it and love myself, but somehow that conjures the image of kicking back in a faded tee shirt and messy bun with a big belly. I try to be Spartan but I just get stressed. And I don't want to be a shopaholic. And everything seems worse at 5 a.m., but at least it's keeping me up.

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