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Wow, so Aidan of Ivy League Insecurities surprised me today by bequeathing The Honest Scrap Award. Cool. My first bloggy award! It’s an award for “honesty and sincerity” in blogging and I could not be more touched. Because, just as Aidan says, I strive to be honest and sincere and know that this is something that is not always natural for me, who likes so much to please people and to be just who they want me to be. No. No more! This blog has been one place where I’ve been working out Who I Really Am in a way that I deeply hope is honest and sincere and yes, scrappy.

So, I learned the rules (and a lot else) from Aidan, who says I am supposed to share ten honest things about myself and then pass the award on to seven bloggers I think deserve it. My initial thought is it’s damn hard to think of ten interesting things about myself, but I will try.

1. I cry almost every day.
2. The things I like least about my physical self are: insomnia, cold sores, overly muscular legs
3. When I was learning to drive I almost drove my parents’ old Jeep into the ocean. My dad was shotgun. I was so scarred by that that I still can’t drive stick shift.
4. I am tone deaf.
5. I warm up really quickly to people but have a hard time being authentically vulnerable.
6. My godmothers are really important to me and I am profoundly honored to be godmother to three children now. I was really scared I would never have that special relationship with anyone.
7. I’m really uncomfortable about aging; getting old terrifies me.
8. I constantly count things in groups of eight (cars in a parking lot, window panes, ceiling tiles) and click them off on my teeth as I count (Aspergers, or OCD, anyone? also, teeth being worn down to nubs).
9. I wish I hadn’t gone to business school and know now I went out of inertia and a sense of what I “should” do rather than any real passion for it.
10. I still print out photographs and assemble old-school photo albums, creating several per year. I think my house will be overtaken by the photo albums.

And now my seven bloggers!

1. Mama at The Elmo Wallpaper

2. Kelly at kellydiels.com

3. Diana at Diana’s Notebook

4. Jenn at Breed ‘Em and Weep

5. Kate at sweet/salty

6. Launa at Wherever Launa Goes, There She Is

7. Jen at jengray.com

(iPhone picture of Nantucket sunset)

I adore this post of Meg Casey’s, The Dream that is Living Me. I find it so reassuring, because while I feel major shifting going on in the deepest parts of me, I also realize my external life looks the same. It is heartening to hear that despite feeling like I am, as she says “swimming against the current,” things may well be moving, albeit slowly, in the direction that I want.

The way I want my life to look floats like a gossamer scrim in front of my forward vision, taunting and inspiring me in equal measure. I know what I think I want – is that progress? – but have no real clarity about how to get from here to there. Still, I have a very real sense of the tectonic plates in me shifting. Sometimes, in fact, I feel like I am only moments away from an earthquake. I need to stop beating myself up about the fact that everything looks the same on the outside, and honor the shifts, either gradual or abrupt, that are happening internally.

I say all the time, “I am getting there …” All the time. Thank you for the reminder, Meg, that there is no such thing. There is only now. As usual, I struggle to honor the now because I tend to be caught between wishing for what was and fretting about what will be. And in so doing, I squander the only thing I have of real value in this life: my time and my attention. I imagine that it is only by surrendering to the now and trusting in the tiny movements that add up to the “current that carries us” that I can get to where I want to go.

So, thank you, Meg, for reminding me to be here now, and for reassuring me that despite outward appearances all of the internal work that I feel like I am doing is not for naught.

I love Danielle’s post about “what your repulsions have to say about you.” It is, as usual, wise and concise. (sidenote: I can’t wait to meet Danielle this weekend!)

I’ve been thinking about what really pisses me off. I have tons of little annoying peeves, but what really really aggravates me and grosses me out is a shorter list.

Lateness (100% for sure the first and most important one)
Entitlement
Over-familiarity
Clowns
Laziness
Complaining

Clearly many of these come from my family’s puritan roots. I was brought up to decry entitlement, laziness, and complaining. What one has doesn’t make one better than anyone else: this was a very strong lesson that I internalized into a profound truth. No single person has more inherent value than any other person. I could not believe this more strongly.

Everybody should pull their own weight and not whine about it. These beliefs are part of my family’s essential rubric, the power of which I am realizing now. Hard work and dedication are prized most of all, and there is a belief that most things can be solved if you try hard enough. This last part, I am learning, may not always be true.

Clowns are just creepy. Lateness and over familiarity, each in their own way, demonstrate disrespect for another.

What can you learn about what you dislike? As Danielle says, contrast can be a great teacher.