…but it might get you in a pinch!
Anhinga tagged me with the Honest Scrap award for bloggers who have written honsestly on their blogs. I think that’s most of us but I’ll accept it, however it leaves me in a pinch because I can’t think of a lot of stuff I haven’t been honest about or I have not posted already. It has taken me days to get around to this and I still don’t know what I am going to write. I’m just going to start and see where it takes me.
1. Although most people that know me would describe me as being strong, I sometimes feel very vulnerable and fragile. I feel like the little girl left alone on a playground trying to keep a stiff upper lip so no one will know I am shaking in my boots.
2. I tend to throw myself into everything I do. Including relationships. However, this writer has been hurt so much and so often that it has changed her. When you give yourself to someone completely and let them into the most private recesses of your soull and your mind, then they turn around and pay you badly, then it changes you. It makes you, or at least me, reluctant to let anyone in again. I’ve noticed that I am reluctant to let people in, even just friends. If I knew them before all of this happened, it’s okay. But if I didn’t/don’t meet them until afterwards (like in the past 18 years) then I don’t allow myself to let go and dive into the friendship or relationship. I know this is not good. I’m just trying to protect my very fragile and fractured soul.
3. One of my biggest faults is my procrastination. If I don’t do something right away, I end up putting it off and off and off until it’s long past too late. I know. Not good. But that’s me. I’ll tell you about later. 
4. Another of my biggest faults is that I am not a self-promoter. I will promote you or you or you but I won’t promote myself. It’s just not in me. That’s probably why I won’t be published before I die. Yeah, I’ve had some stuff published in literary magazines but not anything with a wide audience.
5. I have a cat that I got a year ago. At least that’s when she became mine. She has been in the family for over seven years but she was my daughter’s first then my son’s. Now she is here to keep me company because I live alone. Molly is about 10 to 12 years old. She’s fragile too and that’s why I can’t let myself get too close to her. This has been a real probllem lately. I keep thinking I’m going to wake up and find her dead one day and I don’t want to let myself love her becaue it will hurt too much when she’s dead. Pretty sad, huh?
6. I love watching soap operas. I’ve watched All My Children off and on since the very first day it aired in 1970. I also watch One Life To Live and General Hospital. I know. I know. But I enjoy them so I don’t care what anyone says.
7. I honestly don’t believe I will live any longer than age 60. I’m almost 54. Doesn’t leave a lot of time, does it?
8. I’ve worn contacts for over 35 years. First I wore hard ones then soft ones since around 1980. One problem is that I still can’t put them in or take them out right away. I leave them in until they fall out…months and months and months. Two days ago I ended up taking one out because it hurt and I knew my eye needed a rest. Now I can’t get the new one in. I’ve tried for two days. So I am operating with one contact and an old pair of prescription glasses. Good for up close reading (but not tiny stuff on this netbook…I just can’t see what I am typing!) but I can’t drive or walk around outside. Not good. I have a lot to do before my trip next week and I don’t have groceries so I am surviving on ramen because that’s all there is in the pantry! I can’t see what I have typed so if there are a ton of typos here, that’s why.
8. I can’t relax if I am up about the house and not dressed. I’m not like other people that can run around all day in their pjs. If I am up, I must get dressed right away or I just cannot relax. I just know that if I don’t get dressed, someone will knock at the door and I won’t be able to answer the door. Same thing at night time. I can’t get into my pjs until I am ready to turn out the light!
9. I miss teaching. I miss it more than I can say. It’s not just the kids. I even miss teaching adults! I used to do adult ESL (English as a Second Language) and I miss that. I used to lead staff developments for teachers and I miss that too, although teachers are one of the worst groups you can even lead in anything!
10. I am soooo relieved to be on number 10 because I can’t think of much more. Okay, last one. I am sooo looking forward to my trip next week! I don’t think I have looked forward to anything as much as I am looking forward to Australia, at least not in a long, long time.
Okay. I haven’t kept up with who has been tagged for this and who hasn’t and as I said above, I think most of my readers are pretty honest. So instead of tagging anyone, I would like to invite all of you to participate in this exercise, with an emphasis on Beverly at Whisper and David at Quotidian Vicissitudes and Shawn at Brain Clutter. Write 10 honest things about yourselves. Please post a link here.
I wish I were as good at expressing my feelings as you are. I so agree about not staying in pj’s. I can put them on early after showering and lounge around in the evening, but must get dressed the minute I wake and put the coffee on. Perhaps having to go get the newspaper gives me a little nudge.
Love what you’d done with this challenge. I knew you would come through.
Hope you get your contacts straight before you leave! TravelSmith.com has a wonderful video on packing luggage to avoid wrinkles and planing to take fewer clothes. You probably have that down pat, but if you don’t, it’s worth a look.
That is SOOOO exciting that you’re going to Australia! Have a wonderful, wonderful time.
I did this so I’m off the hook.
Also, smiled big at the part, ‘teachers are one of the worst groups you can lead in anything’. That is so very, very true. Makes sense, in a way-
to many chiefs, not enough indians.
Corina I just came across this today… and yes I will do it, but like you I need some time to think on it. Have a wonderful time on your trip and come back safe and sound to us. I for one will miss you!
Your friend….
Thank you, Corina. As much as I spill my guts on my blog, I’m not sure what’s left for the ten honest things list, but I will mull it over.
#4 on your list is interesting to me. A lot of folks who aren’t good self-promoters aren’t good at it because they simply lack the knowledge and skills. But in your case, it seems you have the skills, but not the will to apply them to yourself. This is a weird thought, but … I wonder if you’d feel differently if you put a nom de plume on your work, and pretended you were someone else?
Soap operas are also my “guilty” pleasure. I watch AMC, GH and Days of Our Lives. The characters feel like family at this point!
How sad that you don’t think you will live past 60. My dad truly believed that he wouldn’t live past 35 and he is still around and will be 70 next year.
I may be wrong. With a grandchild on the way, I hope I am wrong.
Oh! I just saw this, and of course, I’ll do it. Give me a couple of days to think of things you guys don’t already know.
If you get close to kitty, it will hurt, but you will also know that you filled the last days of her life with love.
Funny thing…she senses that I’m leaving. She won’t let me out of her sight. She normally sleeps at the foot of the bed but the past two nights she has slept on my face or on my chest!
Has she crawled in your luggage yet? Cats are so sensitive to our feelings and comings and goings. It’s as if they can read minds. Totally freaky sometimes. They want to talk to us so badly.
LOL Dougs kitten left one of his mice in my carry-one, when I went on vacation. Explain that one to security.
*sigh* carry-on
My kitty didn’t leave me anything in my bag but I’m at my son’s and his two cats keep jumping in my suitcase and snooping around it so I may be carrying some cat toy, or worse, with me to Australia!