Welcome to "Meredith Under Construction"

Welcome! This blog will "chronicle" (to borrow a word from the dear friend who inspired me to start this blog) my journey of self discovery and home renovation. I welcome you to join me for the transformation. I encourage you to pray for my success. Please do NOT pray that I receive patience. Patience comes through tribulation and frankly I've had quite enough of that.

In addition to the inspiration I received from my friend's fantastic blog (KC Chronicles - be sure to check it out!), I was "inspired" by a recent experience in a counseling group. I am currently a Counselor Trainee serving in a community mental health facility. [NOTE: This blog is NOT to be considered a source of professional advice or guidance. It is for entertainment purposes only. If you have a real mental health emergency, please contact your local community mental health facility. A hospital is a good place to receive help if you are not familiar with the location of your nearest mental health facility.]

Now back to our story:

I host a group for teen girls to discuss life, struggles, growth and things of that nature. The group is fantastic. The girls are amazing. They are also VERY honest. Recently, we were playing a game in group during which we each had to answer questions on cards drawn from a deck. I drew the question, "What are 2 things you want to accomplish in your lifetime?"

I quickly replied, "I want to start a counseling center I call a 'Life Support Center' [more to come on that later] and I want to get married."

Two girls simultaneously and with great horror in their voices hollered, "You're not married?!?!?" Subsequently, one of them added, "Aren't you like 40 or something?!?"

I was stunned. I won't go into details about the personal journey I had to take in that moment to control my reaction, think like a counselor, determine the lessons I needed to teach them and the patience it took to calmly reply in a way that was both helpful to them and not hurtful to them. [See how I don't really need that patience prayer?] I will instead talk about the aftermath of that experience.

After realizing that my secret fears are justified because society does, in fact, see me as an outcast and a loser for being 36 (NOT "40 or something") and unmarried, I decided I have some personal work to do. My brain gave voice to the questions I was sure those teen girls were dying to ask:

• Why aren't you married?
• What's wrong with you?
• Doesn't anybody love you?
• Are you completely alone?
• How do you survive like that?
• Why doesn't anyone want to be with you?
• Do you even love yourself? Everybody says you have to love yourself before someone else can love you. Maybe that's your problem. You don't even love yourself.

Now, friends, I can tell you that when your own brain asks you if you love yourself you realize you have a real problem. That brings us back to the reason for this blog. I began to realize the more someone professes his love for me, the more I struggle with trust issues. My mean-spirited brain was right. Stupid honest internal dialogue. I don't love myself. Frankly, I've always thought the concept was a little hokey. Normally I would think, "so what." But I'm beginning to realize that this little character flaw is affecting my relationships. I don't feel loveable, so I don't trust someone who claims to love me. There must be something wrong with a person who can truly know me, know my life story and still choose to love me. Either he wasn't paying attention when I told him the story so I need to spend a lot of time showing him all of my worst traits until he recognizes the truth. Or there is something wrong with him and I need to be cautious until I discover his deep dark secret.

How depressing, right?!?

Well, I'm not stopping there. I'm just beginning. I've decided to begin a journey of self discovery to see if I can get to a place where I can honestly say I love myself. Step 1: stop chuckling to myself about how stupid that sounds. Step 2: figure out how the heck you learn to love yourself. How does that even happen?

I've decided to tie my personal renovation to my home renovation. I'm reinventing the space I live in - both personally and environmentally. The best way I know to remake a space is to start by tearing down the old, stripping away the worn out bits, cleaning off the years of accumulated crud and at least make the outside look good. So...I've taken down all the cabinet doors in my kitchen and I'm sanding them down one at a time, repainting them and giving the kitchen a much needed facelift. For the personal transformation, I've watched about 200 hours of "What Not To Wear" and I'm teaching myself how to dress for the life I want. What? It's a start. It may be purely cosmetic, but it gives me something to work toward. Without a visual reminder, I'll give up half way through this project. I promise.

I'm also reading "Women, Food and God" by Geneen Roth. I'm hoping it will help me discover the deeper internal damage - the same I'm sure to find as I rehab the house.

So....I promise that most entries won't be this long. I promise to be open and honest and share what is really happening with my transformation - not just the pretty parts that make me look good. I also promise to have an Open House when I'm done. I'm shooting for June 1st (although that's a Wednesday, so I may opt for June 4th for convenience sake). I invite you to join me that day to see the big reveal (location to be announced closer to the actual date).

I look forward to reading your comments. Please don't forget those prayers - I'm going to need them. And seriously...I'll know if you pray for patience!