A friend shared a page on Facebook that spoke to me. It is called "Queen of Your Own Life," and it's based on the book Queen of Your Own Life: The Grown-up Woman's Guide to Claiming Happiness and Getting the Life You Deserve, by Cindy Ratzlaff and Kathy Kinney. They have a website you can visit, here.
One of the recent posts on the Facebook page gave a little exercise. Write a thank-you note to yourself as if you were a friend. The post asks, "What would you say to uplift, support, and thank yourself?"
I think this is a great exercise. We are so much kinder to others than we are to ourselves. It's also hard. I was going to publish my own letter in this blog, but I discovered that there is within me a very strong taboo about being thought too full of oneself in public. Would a man feel the same way about publishing a thank-you letter to himself on the web? Good question. Ah, well, I wrote it, and I'll keep it private, for now.
It's true that life doesn't always give us what we want, but after thinking about it for a bit, I decided that there is a big difference between the statements "You can't have what you want," and "You don't always get what you want." The first is a statement that limits us. The second is simply a statement of the facts.
The truth is that you can have what you want, but maybe not 100% of the time, and when you don't get what you want, you generally get what you need, which is a good thing, after all.
If I were a queen, people would do things to make me happy. Perhaps a real queen expects people to make her happy, but that's something I have learned not to do. It's no one's job to make me happy. However, there is nothing wrong with accepting kind gestures from people and showing my pleasure. I do know some people - mostly women - who seem to feel that if someone is making them happy, they must not be doing enough for others, as if receiving a gift of kindness is some kind of sin.
If I were a queen, I would do things that make me happy. This doesn't have to mean spending a lot of money on myself, although there's no reason why I can't. I'm single and have no kids, so if I want to buy myself a diamond ring, then by damn, I will. It doesn't look like anybody else will be buying one for me. Why should I wait for some guy to buy me something I can get for myself, anyway? Actually, I did buy myself a beautiful diamond nearly 30 years ago, but not only did I gain weight, I also broke the ring finger on my right hand, and didn't have the joint set properly, so I can't get the ring on anymore. Time to sell that one, I guess. Besides, a diamond ring is not at the top of my list anymore.
What makes me happy? Well, writing makes me happy, and I do that every day. And traveling makes me happy, and I manage to take some kind of trip two or three times a year. My friends make me happy, and I correspond with friends every day, even if I don't get to see them in person that often. Losing weight makes me happy - mainly because I feel better, physically. Having something to do each day makes me happy, and I've got to the point, now, in my retirement, where I have a little schedule going - something to do each weekday and a couple of Saturdays or Sundays a month. Not too shabby.
By golly, I guess I am, finally, Queen of My Own Life. :-)
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