Certainty

While talking about uncertainty, I've noticed that there are a few things in life I'm certain about.

• I'm a good person. I try to live my life right, do the right thing for myself and other people and do good deeds. I'm generous with my attention, time and effort and love to make people smile.
  
• I'm a good dad. I care so much for my daughter, provide for her, support her and surprise her. I'm aware I'm a pain in the arse sometimes but I think if I didn't get on her case occasionally I wouldn't keep things balanced.
  
• I do truly have the best daughter in the world. I know people say this about their kids all the time, and I always think, sure, they're wonderful, but if you knew my daughter's background and how she's emerged from it like a butterfly from a chrysalis, beautiful, happy, bright, sociable and funny... having her full-time as she turns from girl to woman has helped me appreciate her infinitely more than simple weekend access could ever have done. Seeing her for a few minutes in the morning, then anything between a few minutes to an entire evening every day is a heavenly experience.
  
• I'm a capable adult. I've run an efficient household and been a full-time, single parent for the past eighteen months and bar a few hiccups I think I've done pretty bloody well. I've kept my bank account in the black, managed some savings until recently when we moved house and I spanked it all on frivolous stuff like carpet and a fridge. I've paid a couple of old debts that cropped up and want to clear a couple more too. All this is pretty new for me; I used to be terrible with money and had no foresight in how I used it. Much like the rest of my life during my depression, I spent money in the moment and didn't really plan how far it'd go or learn from how much I struggled at the end of each month. Now, I simply won't live like that and will make sacrifices to ensure we always have money available.
  
• I have brilliant friends and family. Every time I reflect on this it fills me with enormous self-esteem: I know these people love me because of who I am. It took me many long years to realise this, and now my friends and family are probably the most important thing in my life, not just because of their esteem-building properties but mainly because they are incredible individuals, man, woman and child.
  
• I'm attractive to the opposite sex. Various things have pointed to this recently and I've had to sit up and take note: I'm a catch. Let's hope Miss Right comes along sometime soon and notices this too.

There we go then. Uncertainty seems to revert me back to old behaviour, but there's plenty of modern action that counters it. It's been a few days since I started writing this post and I've already felt the benefits of making the association between that old behaviour and my new skills that balance it out. Exploring all this has been very helpful and I know I'll come back and reflect on this down the line. Having this record of the realisations and processes involved in coming to terms with particular feelings will seriously help that reflection, and I think I'll schedule writing about this again in future to see what progress I've made.