Day 100

It's the 100th day of 2013. 100 is a nice, round, even number. Why wait until December to reflect upon the year that was? I am a reflective sort of chickadee -- I'm going to use the 100 day mark as an excuse to reflect.

I know it is the 100th day of the year because of the photo a day project I have embarked upon along with a couple friends. I tag my daily offerings pic a day, but one of my friends has numbered hers which -- in retrospect -- was a really good idea and if I ever do this again it is one I will almost certainly use. Her photo yesterday was day 99, so being the smarty-pants that I am I was pretty quickly able to surmise that today would be 100.

This project has been a real learning experience for me and a lot of fun.

Originally I intended to be in every picture. I thought it would force me to do something worth documenting every day. I also thought it would allow me to get used to the way I look in pictures, because looking at pictures of myself has always been a sort of shocking experience. I figured if I was ever going to get comfortable with myself, I better know what I look like. At the 100 day mark I must admit that I strayed from the goal of being in every picture pretty quickly. It turned into a documentation of my life rather than of me. Nobody wants to look at a new picture of the same old person every day. Ain't nobody got time for that. Plus, I think it portrayed me as someone who was really into herself and that was not how I wanted to present at all. So I branched out and took pictures of other people and of things and of places and I think the project is better for it. I still make sure to get myself in there on a pretty regular basis.

Some things I have learned from this:

When I posted this pic in early January, I got a pretty positive response. It documented my first time buying jeans in a straight size store since I don't even remember when. People said nice things. I said this:

I really ought to learn to wear makeup -- and I have such healthy DARK hair -- it wouldn't kill me to spend a few minutes styling it -- and I need a better fitting bra -- and I still have a crap-ton of weight to lose...

Tom called me out on that comment -- as he tends to do when I get too self-deprecating -- but after I wrote it I realized that (almost) ALL of those things were in my control.

So I got a haircut, bought some makeup, picked up some new bras (boy, was I wearing the wrong size!) and proceeded to feel a whole lot better about myself.

Thanks, pic a day!

I missed a few days -- when I was just too sad to bother -- but I quickly learned that it was a great tool for that, too -- finding something positive or beautiful or worth documenting every single day. Even on those lowest days there is something. There is always something. I forgot that a couple times in the past few weeks, but I intend to try to use it in the future to motivate myself. Visual gratefulness. Make it a goal, on a bad day, to find that one good thing -- just one, no matter how tiny -- then photograph it and post it and make it real -- make it as real as the bad things -- make it MORE real.

Or, you know, skip a day here or there.  Whatever.

100 days in I would say I am definitely well on my way to achieving my goal for this project -- recognizing myself. Embracing the flaws I can't do a thing about and working on the ones I can.

It's a process.

Here's to the next 100 days!