I have written about my discovery of self love before. This is to address the side of it that I didn't expect. 
I don't know if this idea of self love was always around, but I didn't notice it or the need for it, until 2015. I know that because that's when the summer camp ended and I was starting my first year in kindergarten. I was living alone and there was just so much going on. I worked hard and I achieved self love. I thought that was enough. 

Over the years, I've been completely perplexed about how I could love myself and still think so negatively. 
Some days, it's really a job. I've woken up and questioned who I am. Why can't I just be a nice quiet girl that brings everybody joy? I've questioned my strength. I have bent so far over the last few years and it makes me wonder how I could put myself into situations to have to bend like that? My pool of support is small. And some times I wonder what I did to create that. Was it the person I became?

I've looked at myself in the mirror and hated every part of my appearance. On those days, I hear some words that were uttered to me by a parent-like figure I once had. We were walking somewhere, maybe even to the car. She was behind me and she said: 
"You would have a really nice figure if you just lost some weight."
I never forgot those words, which is weird because honestly I didn't think much of them at the time. But now I hear it every time I'm having an off day with my body. 

Self love has been a journey. And I underestimated how much work I would have to do to make sure I stay on that path. I haven't reached that unbreakable level yet. It seems weak to admit that on some days my confidence is shaken, my ability to love myself is diminished, and sometimes I'm just not feeling myself. 

I have grown comfortable in understanding that the relationship with myself is like any other relationship. It's going to have it's ups and it's downs.

IG RESPONSES:
Question: What was an obstacle you faced on your journey of self-love?

Answer 1: Society.
Me: SAME!!!

Answer 2: Learning that everything doesn't go as planned. Its okay not to be perfect
Me: I wish I had known that sooner!

Answer 3: Feeling guilty about putting myself first
Me: Yes, I had and sometimes still have that struggle, but if we don't take care of ourselves first, we are no good to anybody else!

Answer 4: Feeling like a bad mom for needing some "me time"
Me: KIDS ARE LEECHES!! You have to break away sometimes to recharge yourself! I've enjoyed watching you grow as a mom. Your babies will understand!

Answer 5: Learning to love yourself
Me: It's a task, for sure. But it's so worthwhile

Answer 6: Comparing self to others and societal standards
Me: Comparisons are the worst. We hurt ourselves so badly doing that. 

Thank you guys for your input :) It's nice to know that other people have had similar experiences and are also working to overcome them. 

Here's bae...yes this is a thing now LOL

Heyyyy friends! So I wanted to update you guys on some of the changes I've been wanting to make. 

• I've completed two puzzles
• I've read 2 books and I'm almost finished with a third
• I've had a couple days where my tv hasn't been on at all (this was easier than I expected)
• I'm about to explain another part :)

​
OK so now I have to tell yall about my big girl journey!! It was very stressful, but I feel so proud of myself.
So I'm not sure how many of you knew this already, but FUN FACT: My birth certificate and driver's license have the wrong birthday on them. They made me 3 days older than I actually am. It was never a problem, until I tried to file my taxes this year. In the last 8 years of me filing my taxes, it has never come up. WHY NOW?! I was so annoyed. The tax deadline was quickly approaching and since I'm about to go to Vegas, I didn't want to call off and make more sub plans (those are a whole bitch). So I waited until Spring Break, which was last week. 

I called the Social Security Administration and was on hold for an hour and given very specific instructions on how to fix my problem. I went to the local Social Security Administration office on 2nd street. I waited an hour and a half to be told I was at the wrong place. I was so pissed but remained calm. It wasn’t that lady’s fault, but I was still real angry. 

 I thanked the bearer of bad news and went to the next place. I had to go to the Department of Vital Statistics in the Reibold building. Thankfully, the two buildings were close enough for me to walk. The lady there listened to my story and was amazed. She said she's only heard of this happening 2 or 3 other times. She was very nice and eased my nerves because yall I was really pissed about that hour and a half wait. She got it fixed for me and I finally had a birth certificate with my actual birthday on it!!! I didn't think it would be such a big deal, but it made me so happy! 

But then I still needed a new driver's license and I still needed to pick up somethings from school. This had already been one uber and like a 4 block walk. Yall know I'm broke. I was trying to figure out how best to do all this without spending all this money using uber. I was so close to the bus hub, so I walked there and the bus I needed was coming in 6 minutes. I went and got my bus pass and only waited a few minutes for the bus. I went to work, got what I needed and then ubered to the license bureau. I waited about 20 minutes. The guy there was just as amused as the birth certificate lady was. Usually he only sees name corrections. He called someone at the state level to verify my birth certificate correction and they waived the license fee. I only had to pay $3.50 to be registered with my corrected birth date. I took a new picture, I have a double chin, but it says the right birth date so I don't even care!!! 

​Then I went to McDonalds across the parking lot because I realized I hadn't eaten anything at all. I encountered the rudest manager!! She wasn't rude to me, she was rude to her employees. She came outta nowhere yelling "How many patties goes on a double cheeseburger? Say it with me, 2" Then she was talking to this older lady who was a little bit slow, but she was doing her job! She said "You need to move a little faster! You're killing me! What does soap and water do? They clean the screen" it was a line of customers almost out the door listening to her berate her employees and using their names. She was yelling at some of the cooks that they were doing things wrong. A group order came in and when they got their food, one of the salads had the wrong type of chicken. When the guy came up to get his order corrected, she yelled "Are you guys kidding me?" And sent the salad to be corrected. I just could not believe what I was seeing and hearing. Nobody deserves to spoken to like that and embarrassed at work. 

​I told yall, I hide behind not having a car. I don't do things because in my mind I can't. It seems small, but to me it was huge! I traveled across the city by foot, uber, and bus. I accomplished everything I set out to do, 100% on my own. It was an expensive day, but the reward made it worth it. It was a turning point. It showed me my own determination, independence, and capabilities.

Blog Responses: 
I was surprised by how many people have not been proud of themselves for something that could be perceived as small. If you are one of those people that answered no to my IG Poll, I'd really like to know why not? Is it that you don't think you should be proud of small things? Talk to me!!!

Question: What is a "small" thing that you've done to make yourself proud?
Answer: Quit my job!
My Response: GIIIIIRRRL! When I quit my last job, my life changed. That's not a small thing!!! 

Thank you guys for participating and going on this journey with me! Join the conversation and have your responses featured by following my blog on IG @nicolenaturallyblog :)

​Check out bae!!

I have been waiting sooooo long to post this!!! I wanted to be fair in giving people time to watch it before I just put everything out there. I decided that everyone has had long enough. I'm about to ramble...FYI

There is so much to talk about!! 

Overall, I REALLY enjoyed the show. I found it to be educational and entertaining. I think the best way to do this is to go by characters, so here goes:

​Joe: Joe is incredibly charming, if you don't know he's a murderous stalker. The fact that he decided in the first few minutes that Beck wanted him because she used a card instead of cash let me know that he was a little off in the head before I even knew what was going on. My biggest issues, outside of the murderous stalking, is how he managed to manipulate her so much and that she spent all this time apologizing to him for things. This dude was stalking you, murdering your friends, manipulating you, and failing to perform in the bedroom. The amount of apologizing was just disgusting. The fact that he thought that everything he was doing was for her benefit...that's insane. His character was educational because we could get in his head. How he reads people, his instincts, and his intuition...it's crazy!! I still don't know how he picked up on the thing with the therapist. Wanting a better life for Beck wasn't wrong, but his methods of doing so...super fucked up. He really thought killing people was the best thing to do and even addressed how Beck's life was made better by his murders. And then finding out what Mr. Mooney had been doing to him and exposing things to Paco, he's continuing the cycle of abuse. It's all very disturbing. 

Beck: Beck was so naive. I'm not gonna get over this dude being in her shower, with an obvious shadow on the shower curtain and she completely missed it. I might be a little paranoid, but I check my closets and shower often. You just never know. I've decided that Beck is a bad judge of character. Joe and Peach...Nah girl. You should've picked up on something. They were not wrong to hate each other. Peach was not a good friend. She knew that, but she had some sort of obligation to her for whatever reason. Beck was a mess of a person, which is totally relatable. And the fact that she was caught cheating after all the shit that Joe had done...*facepalm*

Paco: I felt bad for Paco the entire time. His mom ain't shit, Ron really ain't shit, Joe ain't shit, but he was good to that little boy. He seemed to be the only one to care about him. When Paco said he forgot the book was in the ceiling and explained with that meant, I was like OH SHIT!!! It's about to get real!! And sure enough, Beck found that box!! Back to Paco, he witnessed drugs, domestic violence, murder, kidnapping...he's seen so much. It makes me wonder where his story would go had he not moved away at the end.

Ron: Ron was an awful person, but he was right about Joe. He didn't know why Joe was weird, but he knew there was something off about him. When he beat Joe's ass after Peach was attacked, I was like good. He deserved that. 

Karen: I LOVED KAREN!!! She came out of nowhere and showed Joe some new shit...some NORMAL shit. Some shit that didn't involve stalking or anything crazy liked that. When he walked in and broke up with her, I was so amazed by how gracefully she made her exit. I was so happy to see that the black woman could be portrayed in such a way on a predominately white show. And when she went to have her talk with Beck, I'm so glad Beck was accepting and started looking into things...but then again maybe that wasn't the best for her because she ended up dead...Was there really a way for her to win? I'm glad Karen made it out alive though. 

Candace: I WANT TO KNOW WHERE CANDACE WENT AND WHAT SHE KNOWS!!! She did a number on Joe and lived!

The Captain: Real quick blurb about Beck's dad. Who else thought she had a sugar daddy? I did and then when they revealed that it was her dad I was like oh that's less interesting and a little weird because she was about to masturbate until he showed up. Eww.

Beck's friends: Beck's friends suck. Joe had that right. Peach. Gross. Her little distraction party...bitch grow up. I knew Peach wasn't a good friend but for it to be revealed that she was in love with Beck...that was shocking af. I didn't see that coming. THAT FAKE ASS SUICIDE ATTEMPT!!!!! I was so MAD! That is nothing to play with. She manipulated tf outta Beck and Beck fell for it. That weird party at the house in Greenwich. Me and Peach would never speak again...well I guess they didn't speak again because Joe killed her. Oops. Annika and Lynn are just dumb af. Joe so easily got them to believe that Beck was with the therapist to set up his murder plan. Why would they so easily believe someone else over their friend that they've known so long? That wouldn't be me! 

Therapist: Joe's ability to keep up the lie about Paul, Reynaldo and Brad is sick af. That's a true talent. This is a lie you gotta keep up for weeks. Like how did he not slip up on those names? I was amazed. And I really don't know how he picked up on Beck cheating with her therapist. Did I miss something? Was that obvious?

Relating to Joe: So although Joe is a huge creep, there was some stuff I found myself relating to that made me think I was crazy. 

• When he said something like "I hardly look at your page. Only about 3 times a day" I was like damn, been there!
• When he said "How am I supposed to be great with you being gone if you're actually gone" after discovering that he couldn't find any of Beck's social media...RELATABLE!!!
• Ummm that's all I can remember. But relating to a stalker is a little uncomfortbale LOL

So I think I've mentioned the things that I received in my blog comments! I agreed with what you all said. It seems that nobody liked Peach and Paco was included in many of the shocking moments. 

Devin, do you think you'll watch?

If I left anything out or you want to discuss something, let me know! If you want to be a part of the conversation, join in on my IG: @nicolenaturallyblog

Check out bae:

Helllooooooo! Last time we spoke, I was telling yall about how bad my week was going, but actually good things were happening. This week was actually bad. I won't go into detail, but I do have a story for you. 

SURPRISE!!! I started the week off in the hospital with the flu. WTF. Yes it was going around my classroom, but this isn't new. The flu visits my classroom every year, it just skips me. I was shocked yall. And ummm the way they test you for the flu...that shit isn't cool. It was the most uncomfortable 2 seconds of my life!! Having the flu, means calling off work. Calling off work means planning for a sub. Planning for a sub means, knowing things are going to go wrong. Knowing things are going to go wrong means having low expectations. Yall, even with all that, I didn't see this coming. My kids are so innocent it's crazy. I was home, sleeping off a fever I'm sure, and I start getting text messages and Class Dojo messages from parents. The gist of the messages are that the kids don't want to come to school tomorrow because the sub scared them. I'm thinking OMG what did she do to my kids?! Then I find out that all she did was yell at them...*face palm* Poor innocent kiddies. 

So let's get into 27....

I woke up on one of the 9 days that I've been 27 and decided I wanted to start being different. I spend a lot of time thinking about how I'm not the woman I want to be, how I need to make sacrifices, stand up for my wallet, and treat my body like a temple. I woke up ready to start doing things differently to become who I want to be. This all stems from thinking about what self care really means to me and discovering that it means self preservation. My view of self care became so childish and so dangerous to who I want to be and what I want my life to look like.  

The first big decision I made had everything to do with my alcohol intake. YALL KNOW ME! YALL KNOW I LOVE MY LIQUOR! Alcohol was a huge part of my self care, but is drinking really taking care of me? The way that I was drinking...there's no way that shit was healthy for any part of me. And it costs a lot of money. I thought it was going to be hard. Any time I ever thought about decreasing my alcohol intake, it was like for what? Bitch for you! I'm so dumb sometimes. This is not to say I won't turn up, because I will LOL but don't count on me to come to the bbq and down 7 shots for nothing because no. We're not doing that anymore. 

The second big decision I made was to decrease the amount of tv I watch and to find something else to fill it's place. There is nothing wrong with tv, there are just other things I want to get into. Recently, I bought some puzzles. I got some new books. I've been trying to get into some new music, but I'm really specific about music. I can't just listen to everything. I'm working on that one LOL

The third big decision I made was to decrease how much of my personal time I give to my job. This one is the hardest, as teaching is a job that is never really done. I struggled really badly my first year. I used to go to school on Saturdays to work and work at home on Sundays, plus most week days. I've scaled way back, but I need to scale back some more. My job is one of those things I hide behind...I'm tired of hiding, but more on that later. 

The fourth big decision I made was all about sex. I'm not a ho. Not even close. But in deciding to treat my body like a temple, I've got to be careful about EVERYTHING that goes into my body. Sex doesn't just come with fear of disease or pregnancy, but, in some cases, feelings and situations. I'm just not trying to go there. I don't got time. 

I told 27 that I'm going to be good to it. I intend to keep my word. I hope I continue to surprise myself in these ways. I'm doing things, thinking about things and believing in things that I never would have before. 

Yall will be with me every step of the way, right? RIGHT? 

Check out Bae. She's a goddess!