What's so wonderful about me anyway?

On the same day I got the news about Heather, I was informed that I had been chosen as a "Wonderful Person and Artist of the Month".

I was completely taken by surprise, humbled, and honored.

Me? Wonderful? Whaaaat?

Terri, my artist friend, features a wonderful person and a wonderful artist of the month on her website. This month she combined them into one category, and then chose two people.

Wonderful person? Artist? Seriously? What is so wonderful about me?

That's a rhetorical question- I'm not fishing for compliments, or hoping for a bunch of responses from people saying "yes, 'Lis you are wonderful!"

That's not my point at all....

because I think self-doubt and lack of self-worth is something that is in all of us. I have a terrible time accepting compliments. I am notorious for saying something sarcastic or self- deprecating. Because deep down.. I know there's nothing really that great about me.

And this makes me laugh.

Because if someone I love was writing these very same words... I'd be coming up with a whole list of why I think they are in fact wonderful.
I can close my eyes and picture the face of someone I love. And I could write a whole blog about why I think they are wonderful.

Now Terri--- she definitely is someone wonderful. Her art... the words she writes... her blogs... they all give us a glimpse of a truly beautiful heart. It's amazing the connections you can feel, even if it's over e-mail. The words she's written to me, I carry around in my heart. I'm not sure if I completely believe them all quite yet... but I'm getting there.

We see it in others. We celebrate it in others.... but we don't want to see it in ourselves.

Even in writing about Emily... There's alot of things about her that were (are?) wonderful. Amazingly wonderful qualities that made her who she was. And yet... there were alot of things about her that just out and out made me want to wring her neck, and made me angry, and things I wished she could change.
But all in all, she was (is) wonderful because all of that is what made her who she was.

No one likes perfect people. It's incredibly hard to be "real" around someone who seemingly has it all together. It's hard to relate to someone who doesn't seem to struggle with life.

I still don't think that there is anything spectacularly wonderful about me. I know myself too well- and I know the dark and the ugly that I keep inside. I hide behind a mask I try to project to people, and all the while knowing that I really can't measure up. So wonderful, I am not.

But it makes my heart overflow to know that there are people who think I am.

And I'm thinking that right there may be the very point of it all.

(Here's a link to Terri's website.)