I’ve always had this thing about being true to myself. The only problem is I don’t see myself how the world sees me. I suspect few people do. I’ve never really noticed that though, because most people hide their ‘blue skin’. They wear masks depicting what they’re supposed to be … or what they think they’re expected to be.

I read an article a few days back that put it in a very interesting way. The article claims we all need love to be happy, but we hide that need, even from ourselves. Then it goes on to talk about meditation, which I don’t do anymore, so ignore that part. Anyway…

At the core love is what we all want, but we are too buried in our protective gear to receive it. Love in an evolutionary impulse. To be loved means we are safe, we are fully accepted and we belong. If we belong then we know that other people have our back and we’re going to be okay when danger lurks. We can relax, be vulnerable and open up to the good that life has to offer.

But we don’t live in an ancient culture anymore where we physically belong to a tribe or not. It’s not okay to be vulnerable, but vulnerability is where love lies. Nowadays we have to dress a certain way, act a certain way, socially contort ourselves a certain way to find acceptance. We engage life not from any authentic core, but from a series of sub personalities. As we do this we create different masks to wear within our families, work and even among friends.

I suppose I’m at the extreme end of this spectrum. I believed that being true to myself meant putting my entire self on display, then crumbling when that ‘self’ made people run away. What I realised is the ‘self’ I was portraying wasn’t really my blue skin. Because of my depression, I has such a negative self image that I couldn’t see anything good about myself. It was so pervasive I couldn’t recognize the strengths everyone else saw. I was getting all these compliments and still viewing myself as worthless, unwanted, unlove-able.

Thanks to some home therapy from a good friend, I’m starting to acknowldege my strong points, and that gives me a much better sense of myself. I agreed to focus less on my weaknesses. In fact, I promised not to talk about them at all, so I could focus on the stuff that’s good. But then I saw the poem about blue skin and I wondered if I was back to square one, hiding the very thing someone might be trying to find in me.

Except that’s not really it. When we’re looking for someone to love, someone who is like us, we’re not really looking for flaws. It’s not like I want to marry a man with a temper just because I throw things around when I get mad. And the ideal person to handle my mood swings isn’t someone as moody as me.

What we’re hiding are things we think others might not accept. Things like unusual hobbies, eccentric taste, embarrassing pleasure points. I might hide the fact that I’m 32 and still play Super Mario, or that I spend hours at a time watching reality TV. (Not the Kardashians. I prefer Extreme Couponing, Long Island Medium, What Not To Wear, Secret Eaters, True Hollywood Story, Say Yes to the Dress, Brides of Beverly Hills … Shows which in some ways are worse than the Kardashians … *sheepish grin*)

Everyone accepts Big Bang Theory as mainstream comedy, but a lot of people still think watching Stargate Atlantis makes you a nerd. (I love all the Stargates by the way. Except Stargate Universe, that one is kind of dark. But for the others, Daniel and Sheppard are way hot, Sam is my hero, O’neal is pure comedic genius, Ronon Dex is an absolute dream, and how could anyone hate Teal’c?)

I might hide the fact that I don’t understand Afro-Fusion or John Legend and prefer to listen to Nickelodeon soundtracks. A guy might pretend to like floetry he doesn’t understand, or a girl might deny enjoying Papa Shirandula or Vitimbi. This is the kind of blue skin you can spend a lifetime camouflaging. And we hide it so well that we could miss out on the blue-skinned love that walks right past.

I guess the blue skin thing isn’t an issue for me because I like to shock people. I actually enjoy exposing the blue and watching people’s reactions. And now that I’m teaching myself that I’m worthy of love, I know that some blue-skinned boys will come my way. It feels good to know I’m growing enough to willingly accept their affection when they show up. It took me long enough, and it’s definitely about that time.

♫ Me and you against the world ♫ Rags soundtrack ♫

I’ve heard of people dealing with issues by choosing to let them go. You can – they say – choose to forgive, or to not hold grudges, or to stop mentally bashing someone’s face. But can you choose to NOT be depressed? It’s advice I’ve been given pretty often, and it always annoys me, because in my mind, I didn’t decide to be depressed, so I can’t exactly decide not to be.

Except maybe I can. Depression is a disease that makes you see the world – and yourself – in muted tones. The sky is never blue, the grass is never green, and your eyes are never pretty. The whole world could tell you how awesome life is, how awesome you are, and you just wouldn’t see it. But is it possible to teach yourself – to train yourself to see a different world?

I recently reconnected with a dear friend from high school. In the middle of a random conversation, she pointed out that in all the years she’s known me, she had no idea how low my self esteem was. She said, ‘Tell me one good thing about yourself – apart from your daughter and your writing.’ I smiled and realised for the first time in a while that according to me, there wasn’t any.

When you say things like that to the wrong people, they get mad because they think you’re fishing for compliments. But when you say it to the right people, they see you, really see you. And if they truly care about you, they help you. My friend helped me, and I love her for that. Thanks to her, I looked in the mirror for the first time in ages. Really looked, not the cursory glance I give myself at every bank window. And for the first time in ages, I allowed myself to see the beauty that was there.

I sat down and analysed myself the way I do every minute of every day. Except this time, I made a conscious choice to look for good things, and I was surprised at how many I could come up, with considering I wasn’t aware that anything good existed. I made a promise to myself, and to my friend, that I would do this every day, deliberately making a list of all my good qualities, until it comes natural to see myself that way.

I made a second promise that is harder to keep. I promised her I wouldn’t talk about my weaknesses. The reason that promise is harder is that it feels like lying, like pretending to the world that I’m not who I am. But my friend put it clearly. If a bird breaks its leg – or even its wing – does it stop being a bird?

Pretty much all my life, I’ve defined myself by my flaws and lived my life accordingly. The reason I’m depressed so much of the time is that I see myself as the sum of my faults, and dwell on them so much that there’s nothing left to love. By shifting my perspective, I can be a lot happier, because I can finally see the those hidden features, the ones that everyone else claims are so many, and so clear.

I’m a cynical romantic, that’s no secret. I don’t believe in happily ever after, at least not for me. But in talking to my friend, I realise I do want that, I just don’t think I deserve it, or that I’m worthy of it. I convinced myself that I don’t need it because I think I’ll never have it. So maybe my first step in finding an ideal, healthy relationship is not in letting go of toxic liaisons, but in teaching myself I don’t deserve that kind of love. Then maybe I can draw the right one into my life, or at the very least, recognize him when he walks by.

It’s interesting that ever since I started watching Gilmore Girls, I couldn’t wait to turn 32. For me it was the apex of motherhood and feminine beauty … and Lorelai. But what changed for me wasn’t simply the age. It was a much-needed talk from a well-loved friend, a talk that came at just the right time, a true message from [God and] the universe.

This is my gift to myself, for this year, and for years to come. Allowing myself to see the good everyone else sees in me. Fixing that wound on the inside that no one else knows about. And leaving myself open to the right kind of love – in friendship, in partnership, and even in my own child.

Depression. My theory for a while has been to sit back and watch it, let it pass, because I know that eventually, it will. But some days are harder than others, and today was one of those days. Maybe it’s because a hot boy took a pot shot at my eating habits this week. Or maybe it’s the weather. All I know is I was so down this morning that I might have seen a shrink … except that trouble at work means my medical cover was cancelled.

It’s the holiday season and there’s lots of people talking about gratitude and counting blessings, so I sat on my bed in the dark and counted all the lovely things that have happened to me this year. It didn’t really help. I glanced over at my baby and hugged her in her sleep. She instinctively reached over and hugged me back, and that did help. It wasn’t enough to shake all the blues away though.

When I finally dragged myself out of bed, my instinct was to dress in black and skip breakfast, since I was late for work already. Then I figured I should try to do something – anything – to lift my mood a bit. So instead of wearing my funky black attire, I put on a sparkly yellow hoodie and a matching yellow bow.

In the ad world, wearing bright colours can lift a person’s mood. We say that all the time. It’s how we pick our logos. In the real world, I’ve been wearing yellow sequins every hour of today, but I don’t feel any less blue. I’m glad I did something though. I’m glad I took a step beyond waiting for the darkness to pass, because the practical way isn’t always the right way. Also, I found a video that made me smile. It was posted by a former boss to – you know – show us how to advertise Christmas. Muhahaha. Still, it made me smile, so that’s something. So here’s to chasing the dark days away and Early Merry Blue Christmas everybody.