This is my 7th day — the end of my first week of this new way of being me in the world. I still love it. I love it, I love how it feels, I love taking the time to put it in my day and what it means that I do. I’ve been shy about it, in a strange way; last night I told Marc what I am doing, why I am doing it.

Aside from the very obvious physical aspects of this, there’s a much deeper reason for me. I always feel like Plan B, second best, the easily-forgotten one, easily tossed-aside, temporary placeholder. Isn’t that sad? And the implications are incredibly painful to me, and undoubtedly hard and frustrating for Marc. For me, I live in fear and anguish that any reminder of the previous women in his life (or awareness of new women he meets, even patients) will be nothing but a strong spotlight on my second-ratedness. That I’ll be seen for who I am, the lesser option. So I have these constant spasms and shots through my heart. And for him, how awfully frustrating! No matter how much he tells me he loves me, shows me he loves me, tells me all the things I say I long to hear, I don’t believe him.

So my deeper reason for doing this is to focus on myself and care for myself. To finally understand that I’m pretty good, and strong, and pretty, and of course I’m lovable!

I can’t say any of this without crying. I’ve found a bunch of blogs about this, about self-acceptance and things like that; more about style and fashion; more about fitness and wellness. It feels like an entirely new direction for my life.

Today I’m going to do something active, I’m just not sure what. At a minimum, I’ll get out for a fast walk, if the weather allows (it’s suppose to be rainy, we’ll see). If it’s bad weather, I’ll do some deep housecleaning and maybe some stretching or something. I found this site, which I fear is brought to us by Martha Stewart, but it still has some good stuff.

Thank you again, Marnie.