10 (or more) Things I Hate About Me

1. I am overweight. Fat, pudgy face, double chin, huge saggy D-cup boobs, enormous lower abdomen (I used to have a pretty slim waist by contrast but that's gone bye-bye the past 2-3 years). Huge arse, big thundery cellulite thighs. If I ever win the lottery I am going straight to Lipo-land.
   
2. I don't have or make enough money to fulfill my few materialistic urges; I have to worry about making ends meet; I'm draining money out of my IRA just for everyday expenses. I have a good understanding of long-term investments, but put 3 bucks in my pocket and I'll either lose them or spend them unwisely. I'm so absent-minded I frequently record upcoming bills in Quicken but forget to program the payments into my bank's online bill-pay form and then I end up paying @^%&! late fees. I'm not making much money because although I've been in the work force for a good long time, it's only in the last five years or so that I've made a concerted effort to behave like an adult in the workplace. That means showing up on time, mainly. It also means when someone asks me to do something and says "...but no rush," it means do it right fucking now. I've only recently come to understand that concept. Self-sabotage has been a huge elephant in the living room of my life; part of the reason I've been unusually happy lately is that I've discovered the key to monitoring my own behavior and giving myself useful feedback, rather than going along blithely in a state of utter cluelessness and then feeling poleaxed when people got fed up with my behavior and cut me loose. I've finally learned how to listen with a third ear, read between the lines and take hints!!! I'm actually looking for ways to improve myself, rather than assuming I was perfect and not in need of any improvement.
3. I'm not as smart as everyone thought I would be when I was growing up. I make dumb mistakes in vocabulary when I should know better; I'm at about a 5th-grade level in math (which probably relates to the money woes). I wouldn't say I'm ADD, but my concentration could be a lot better. I most definitely squandered my school years and I wish I had 'em back.
4. I'm not the domestic type. Other women seem to have this knack for making their homes just fit together like a picture. Mine looks like Amateur Night. I'm a hopelessly sub-par cook, too.
5. I have very little musical or artistic talent--including photography and crafts. I can only express myself through writing, and even there my talents are very inconsistent. No athletic ability whatsoever (being inactive contributes to #1 above...)
   
6. My emotions get the better of me. I don't cry much, but I get "upset," which means speeding out of control, yelling, throwing tantrums and just having instantaneous, unplanned reactions to things that make me look like, to put it bluntly, some kind of nut. Granted, this was role-modeled for me throughout childhood -- our home was loud and chaotic most of the time. A blind person walking in might think six or seven people lived there, when in reality it was just us three. I'm working on the emotional thing.
   
7. I'm very introverted and socially awkward. The introverted part, I understand. Introversion is (see the link that follows) a chemical process: http://publicaffairs.uth.tmc.edu/hleader/archive/Mind_Body_Soul/2005/introvertsvsextroverts-1221.html so I don't beat myself up over it. I've also discovered ways to dig out from under the introversion a bit and enjoy the "outside" world. Up until my late 30s, I was "living in my own private Idaho," and amazingly cut off from life that was going on all around me. No wonder I was lonely! I'm narrowing that gap between everybody else and myself to a large extent, but I still get tongue-tied in crowds and have this doofus tendency to say the wrong thing at the wrong time. The internet has been incredibly helpful for me. I can sit on a message board and communicate in the way that's most natural to me -- writing -- but also get immediate feedback and keep up with real people in real time. I don't believe in God -- but it's a godsend.
   
8. Related to the above, I've wasted a huge chunk of my life just stuck inside this little shell, not getting out more and experiencing more. On the other hand, this could be part of what's kept me somewhat childlike and "youthful." I look a lot younger than I am, which could be nothing more than my insulated nature showing itself on the outside.
9. I've done a poor job of planning. Again, it's only in the last 5 years or so that I've started understanding the connection between what I do in the next 20 seconds and how it could potentially have a direct impact on the next 20 years. I've been very passive throughout my life, just letting people sort of push me in the direction they wanted me to go in (parents and ex-husband, chiefly, but also some "friends," who I've recently jettisoned from my life, hooray for me).
10. I've done a very questionable job raising my son. I know Doug played a major part in Wally's troubles, but dammit to hell, he's a beautiful person and some of the decisions I made were not the best ones.

Well, that's 10. There might be more, but those pretty much cover the bases.