It’s the last day of July and in about 48 hours it will have been three weeks since I left home. I’ve talked to Chris on the phone, through email, and via instant message more than once a day. My mom and I chat every few days by phone or computer. And I have kept in touch with the guys at work where everything seems to be running smoothly. I miss home, my job at the tattoo shop, my animals, my life…but not in the way that I’m homesick. I miss it all in the way that I am just so excited to return and have things be that much different in good ways, for me to be that much different because I’ll be healthy.

In my lifetime I have never truly believed that I really was deserving of a change like this. At the same time though I have never been so consciously proud of myself as I am each day with this. I have been proud of random acts, certain decisions, or pieces of artwork in the past but I’ve always been proud of the outcome and not specifically the person doing the deed. It’s almost like, in my mind, I just considered it a fluke that I happened to be the one doing those things. It’s truly different, and for me foreign, to actually have this belief in myself.

Thats not to say that I don’t feel the old pull of tension when I put myself in the place of something I have created. I’m not outwardly boastful about things and I try to keep an air of modesty when I talk to other people. Inwardly, though, I am much more conscious that I am the one who accomplished these goals. It didn’t happen by accident – it was me.

Sometimes my mind will try and tell me the same old refrains about how I don’t deserve to feel good about a deed. It tells me that I didn’t do it well enough, that I should have done more. It speaks to me about how everything I do now thats good is just another thing I owe the world for screwing up so bad in my past. Its like every good action is part of the penance I own for messing things up and hurting others years ago. But how long do I have to believe my every action is part of some cosmic repayment plan for my past? I’ve been told time and time again that I deserve to be happy but it wasn’t until now that I really believed that to be true to any extent.

Now it may not be a recognizable change outwardly but, inside, for once I feel truly good about myself. I’m walking a difficult road right now but I know that I am the one doing it. I am accomplishing things now that I truly believed I did not deserve to accomplish before…and it feels good. I know the potential for amazing new things is that much  more heightened because I am here now doing what I need to do for myself.

Now I just have to keep it up while thinking clearly about the next thing life throws my way. No matter what that may be.