#ProjectThreeSixFive: Day 21

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @JenSquard

My kids are my models...poor things.  I'm hoping that in 20 years they will really appreciate it.

Here is my site and my photoblog - checky check it out!

I dated a #dumb guy

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @JenSquard

Well, let’s be real, I’ve dated a lot of dumb guys, but there is one that really stands out.  And I don’t mean like, he’s a boy, he’s dumb....I mean like straight up really not smart.  At all.  

I’m going to call him Fernando, mostly because that’s the ABBA song that’s playing right now.  So Fernando....we went to school together since I moved here in middle school, but I never paid a ton of attention to him.  He was a redneck, like wayyyy redneck.  Cowboy pants, work boots, major swagger even when he was 11, the whole thing.  Not a bad looking person, there was potential there.

In high school I was about the farthest thing from a redneck.  I have often been called a hippy, which has always annoyed me for some reason.  I’m not really a hippy...I’m a bleeding heart.  I get a total boner for nature, and always have.  I’ve wanted to work with animals since I was wee, I don’t hunt, blah blah.  Not hunting has always been a source of strain in this town.  EVERYONE hunts.  That adorable tiny popcorn fart of a girl with long eyelashes and heels - you can bet your ass she goes deer hunting with her daddy every fall.  Too weird for me.  I’ve always been a little out there, a free spirit, and gone with whatever I like.  Always.  I wore crazy things in high school because I could pull them off.  I was friends with most people, but not one of the popular kids or outcasts.  And I was a bit of a fox so I got away with a lot.

Fernando was close to the exact opposite of me.  He struggled in all of his classes.  He had a group of redneck friends that chewed tobacco, got into fights for no reason, but treated old people with respect.  He was good at sports, and incredibly funny, but mostly stayed out of the way.  We were friends, and I hung out with that group as much as I hung out with any other group.  They bought me breakfast in the town over whenever I would ditch class, so, hey, I thought they were awesome.

My first three years of high school were crazy.  My relationship with my dad was a mess, so I did everything I could to defy him.  I drank, I partied on school nights, I had sex, all of it.  I lived it up in a pretty major way.  After I left my dad’s house my junior year, things settled down a bit.  My mom gave me freedom so I no longer needed to push my limits.  I had a class with Fernando...well, woodshop, so not really....and I started noticing things about him that I was attracted to.  Dumb things, like the way he saw the world, and the way he spoke to people.  Not necessarily attractive qualities, but things I was drawn to.  We started dating, and that way weirded everyone in the school out.  It was a terrible matching and didn’t make sense on any level at all.  

But he really wasn’t smart.  He spelled 9 out of 10 words wrong.  One day we were talking about bugs, and I mentioned how they were strange little animals.  He told me in no uncertain terms that bugs were NOT animals.  They were bugs.  In his mind they were two very different things.  I asked if he thought trees were plants.  They aren’t, apparently.  These are things that I have known since I was tiny...and here is a grown man that refuses to accept it.  Mind blowing, I swear to you, I didn’t even know how to process that.  That was nothing new, though, he saw the world in a very different, very masculine, and very juvenile way.  He had zero nerd in him.  ZERO.  He was passionate  about nearly nothing.  He didn’t understand why I cried and cried when I got to hold hands with a monkey.  Having something that you feel that strongly about made you weak, in his eyes at least.

Dating Fernando got me under control.  I no longer partied until I got alcohol poisoning.  I stopped using my body to get attention, and I focused on my future.  I actually learned in college, and if it hadn’t been for that I wouldn’t have met the turd bird that would become my husband.  But if it hadn’t have been for dating such an incredibly unintelligent and dull person, I would never have learned the value of fellow nerds, stimulating conversation, and someone that shares your interests and passions.

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ProjectThreeSixFive: Day 20

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @JenSquard

This is my oldest daughter, Anika.  She is a handful, but quite cute.  I couldn't decide which one I liked best, so today's photo is actually several photos. 

Find my most recent work on my photoblog and on my site, and let me know what you think!

#IAmEnough - My steps toward self-acceptance

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @JenSquard

I am enough.  That’s a huge huge thing to accept.  And that right there is the basis of sooo many of my fears.  Let’s recap: failing, not being accepted, looking like a wimp, being judged, disappointing, Brian dying, losing a child, being a waste of a person, being poor forever.  Yeah, not feeling like I am enough covers 7 out of 9 of those.  

After really diving into my fear of failing, I realized that being inadequate and being judged for it is totally what my inner most fear is.  Not being enough makes me want to hide in a closet with a bag of skittles and a pan of lasagna, and never leave.  It’s a day to day thing, and I hate hate hate fucking hate having it.  But just because you know a fear is stupid doesn’t mean it is easy to dispel.  I have scratched a fear of failing off of the list.  Looking at it from a different perspective makes me realize that I am okay with failure.  I really am okay with it, and have made peace with the fact that failure happens.  It is only a failure if I consider it a failure.  Failing will only happen if I stop growing, stop learning and stop putting myself out there.

I also want to give myself a major thumbs up for taking on this craziness.  It is a million times harder than I expected.  Growing, exploring myself, and being wide open to everything isn’t a problem for me...but learning that everything you have ever known, everything that you have ever felt, everything thing that you are isn’t real, isn’t important and isn’t solid *SUCKS*.  It will be nice once I am on the other side, and some surrender will be good...but getting there is a total ass rape in a jar and is incredibly incredibly scary.  

We have all been taught forever and ever that vulnerability is a bad thing.  I feel like I am open and without walls in general, but that if I was vulnerable I was weak.  And who wants to be weak?  Not this badass bitch!  No, but seriously, I am going to start looking at vulnerability as a way to expand my awesomeness.  It will allow me to let people in on a deeper level, and hopefully share pieces of me in a more understandable and relatable way.  And it’s going to suck nards until I get some balance and acceptance.  *sigh*

What if I let go and there isn’t a net under me?  What if I open up and someone pokes my softest spot?  How do I move on when I share the core of me and it isn’t good enough?  But I am enough.  So I don’t need your feedback.  I don’t need your acceptance.  I certainly don’t need you to analyze my fears.  That is my undertaking, and one that needs to be done.  My confidence in all of this will come, I just ask for patience.

#IAmEnough

Follow my transformation on Twitter and Facebook - and feel free to send me your stories, I would love to hear about your journey! 

Fear #1: Fear of #Failure

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @JenSquard

Atychiphobia - Fear of Failure

My confidence in myself as a person is pretty high.  I’m awesome and blah blah blah.  But I’m so incredibly scared of failing.  I don’t worry about my marriage failing.  That is solid, and if it does it was just not meant to happen.  My fear of looking stupid is masking itself as this assumption that I am going to fail at everything.  I’m not stupid.  I’m not.  $40,000 in student loans got racked up to validate that I’m not stupid.  But every time I don’t succeed at something I just know everyone is looking at me like I’m an idiot.  It was dumb to start the business.  The idea for the business was stupid.  I didn’t try hard enough.  I’m not as good.  I’m not good enough.  

Thinking about it now, failing in front of my husbands parents is the thing I worry about the most.  Probably because they play the comparison game.  I should be more like my brother-in-law, or my sister-in-law...Jon started a business and is doing so great...Mandy went back to school and is doing so great....meh.  Doesn’t matter that circumstances are different, it’s just a constant be better, make more money, don’t ruin Brian’s life.  

I started two businesses before my photography.  Each were successful-ish, just not great businesses for making money.  They took took took and didn’t give much back.  So I quit.  That’s so embarrassing, I quit at something because it just wasn’t working.  I failed.  I’m not even comfortable talking about them because I feel so stupid for trying them in the first place.  One was a custom invitation company, and the other was all natural dog treats.  Both did well, but the profit margin wasn’t enough to sustain.

I know to live is to fail.  Whatever.  To fail is to look stupid.  And I’M NOT STUPID.  When Jen told me I wasn’t hitting the mark with lifecasting, it made me sooo mad!  I was pissed, and so embarrassed.  Here is someone that knows how to do it, that I am trying hard for, and it just isn’t good enough.  I am taking time away from my job and my family to lifecast, and it’s not good enough.  That makes me feel like my life isn’t good enough.  I am failing at life if I am failing at lifecasting.  What is the point in doing it if I am just going to suck it up.  I don’t want people to see me as not smart, or not good enough, or as a whiner or whatever...because maybe it will mean that I actually am those things.  I don’t want to look stupid because in my mind that means I am stupid.  I have tried hard my whole life to prove my father wrong.  That I’m not stupid, I’m good enough, I have something to offer the world...so if I fail, then he is right.  I’m not good enough.  I’m not good enough.  I’m not good enough for anyone.  Why waste the time of the TNTML community and family if I’m not good enough.  Why waste the time of my clients if I’m not good enough.  I’m stealing from people by taking their money for photography because I’m not good enough.

I can’t fail.  I can’t.  I can’t face anyone for not being good enough.  The negative people will have won and will have been right - I am an idiot.  I am a waste of space and breath, and time.  So I suppose this fear of failing is less about failing and more about being inadequate and looking stupid.  I don’t want to disappoint.  I don’t want to disappoint Jen, who took a risk by asking me to lifecast with her.  This is her brand and her name, I don’t want to be the fuckup that couldn’t cut it.  I don’t want to make her look stupid.  I don’t want to disappoint my husband who has supported me and let me sink so much money into my businesses.  I don’t want to disappoint myself and find out that I’m not as awesome as I claim to be.  To live is to fail....it’s the aftermath that scares me.

I would love to hear your thoughts on my fears. Tweet me: @JenSquard

Facebook me: @jenswedhinphotography

email me: mangotreelover@hotmail.com