FTSF – I Have No Proudest Moment

I have no proudest moment to share with you.

I am terrible with superlatives. Favorite? Best? Proudest? Worst? I am always struck dumb when asked to name only one. After thinking about this for days, I find myself reaching the same conclusion once again.

I can not name any one proudest moment.

But I can tell you that I loved winning essay contests and spelling bees when I was in grade school. And I was fairly impressed with myself when I submitted three of my own poems as part of an anthology project in eighth grade.

I believed I could accomplish anything the day I earned my first degree black belt in Karate. I felt strong and healthy and brave.

I have walked away from relationships that were not healthy for my self-esteem. Chalk them up to immaturity, life changes, personal growth – whatever. There were times I realized that I had to move on and had the courage to do it.

I went back to school in my late twenties to earn the degree and certification necessary to make a career change. I worked full time during the day and went to school full time at night. To this day I do not know how that was possible, but I finished my degree by my targeted date.

As part of that degree program, I passed college statistics. This was huge for me because I had myself convinced that I was not good at math. I must have a warped sense of goal-setting because I opted for that course over two others that would have been much simpler.

I went back to school once again in my late thirties to earn my masters degree because I wanted to. I earned that degree as well by a date I set in my mind. It was arbitrary, really, but I wanted an end point to use for focus. I carried a course load somewhere between half and full time, depending on the semester, and worked at a full time teaching position.

As part of that degree program, I passed my course in advanced college statistics and educational research. I was floored that I passed that and gave myself a huge pat on the back for having had the wisdom to take undergrad statistics. It helped. A lot. And as it turned out, the comp exams were about 80 percent (you guessed it) stats and research. Proud, I tell you. Very proud.

During the two and a half-ish years of my master’s program, I had a husband and a marriage to think about. I had an infant daughter to raise. During that time period I also added diagnoses of ADHD and RA to my resume.

I was proud and happy and overwhelmed and every other thing I can think to add here the moment I finally held our daughter in my arms. Her birth was traumatic; we both could have died. We didn’t.

I had the patience to wait to make a major life decision until it was appropriate to do so. It was probably the greatest challenge of my life. It was flat out hard to say where I was at the time, but I had to for several reasons. I waited. I prayed. I cried. But I managed to get through.

I quit my job when I knew the time had come to move to a new version of life to better serve the needs of myself and my family. It was terrifying. It still is some days. But it was one of the best decisions I have ever made.

With my Husband, I am raising my Daughter to be a kind, compassionate, and capable human being. I am a good mother. I am a good wife and partner. I am a good daughter, sister, and friend.

And right now I’m going to actively add one more proud moment.

My normal way of responding to a list like this would be to suddenly realize what I just said. I would pull back into myself and get embarrassed. I would worry that somehow I sounded too full of myself and that people would think I was obnoxious.

But right now I am going to be proud to say that I have outgrown that habit and I am confident enough to say that these are circumstances and moments of my life about which I should feel pride and satisfaction. I am doing what I’ve written about for the last two months with 1000 Voices Speak for Compassion. I am stopping the negative self-talk and practicing self-compassion.

And finally, I am proud to tell you that I am not finished. I am a work in progress.

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This has been a Finish the Sentence Friday post, where writers and bloggers link up their words to a weekly prompt. This week’s prompt is “My proudest moment was…”

Our happy host is Kristi from findingninee.com.

This week’s co-hosts:

Tarana Khan from sandinmytoes.tk and Kerri Ames of undiagnosedbutokay.com.