Humbled

You know what is painful?  Realizing all of the stuff you completely suck at. (Yeah, the grammar on that sentence is appalling, but "Realizing all of the stuff at which you completely suck," just doesn't seem to say what I'm trying to say.) Sometimes I wonder if the Universe didn't send me twins to make me finally realize that I CAN'T DO EVERYTHING ON MY OWN! In school I always hated group projects because I felt like I invariably ended up with the dummies or the lazy people and ended up doing 85+% of it on my own. You don't have to look very hard at my life to see evidence of this "Look, I'll just do it myself" approach.  Homebirth.  Homeschool. I'm sure there are less obvious examples, but those two are huge and pretty dramatic, so I guess it's good enough.

When I have a problem I research.  I read books, websites, forums, etc.  Amazon is both a blessing and a curse for me because I will (and have) read literally dozens of reviews on an item before purchasing it.  I think one thing that gives me a great deal of satisfaction is researching curriculum for school. Anyway, I am very good at finding answers, and am often a "go to" person for people I know when they have questions about something that falls within my fields of interest.  But I am not so good at admitting when I don't know something, nor am I good at going to someone to ask for help.  If a book or website can't help me, well, I guess I will just muddle along until I get it figured out ON MY OWN.

David and I had a long conversation tonight and he pointed out that everything I do, I tend to get wholly invested in, which leaves no room for anyone to help or offer suggestions or anything else. And it also explains why I am so blasted sensitive to critique or even non-positive comments.  If you mention X, and X is something that I do, I am 100% tied up in X (even though it seems numerically impossible to be 100% emotionally tied up in X, Y, & Z, I somehow manage to do this) and therefore your comments will cut me to the core and I'll have to shut down to not be hurt.  Why am I so afraid to face my own suckiness sometimes always?  It isn't like I would actually ever claim to be an expert at X or the world's best Y, but I can't handle any critique of it.

I actually made my own poster version of the above to hang up in our kitchen for my kids' benefit.  I guess I need it as much if not more than they do. 

It's discouraging.  David is really really great at strategic planning and all that sort of stuff.  I am an idea person, great at ideas, not so great at execution.  Really bad at tracking and data. He actually had me do a strengths profile/assessment that he and his business associates did (maybe I'll go into that more as I read through the results).  Yeah...we're not super compatible in our strengths.  Which, if we can EVER FIGURE OUT HOW TO COLLABORATE will be a good thing. But as it is and has been for the past 12 years, we mostly just butt heads and frustrate each other.  I'm gonna stay optimistic, though, and think that me even being able to see my own sensitivity and having been drastically humbled are key steps towards that happening.  

"...A little better all the time (It can't get more worse)..."