Let me count the ways...

"Whatever you are doing, love yourself doing it. Whatever you are feeling, love yourself feeling it."
- Thaddeus Golas

I've been doing a lot. I'm taking eleven classes (five of them are dance classes, so it's not THAT crazy, but it is time consuming) and just when I thought I had finished my midterms, another wave hits. I have three next week. Sometimes it's hard to love what I'm doing, and then we learn a beautiful dance or I find a pretty leaf or I watch a thought provoking play and I love it again.

I've been feeling a lot, too. Fear of inadequacy, homesickness, lonliness... and love and strength and bliss. My roomate must think I'm bipolar, I swear.

Sometimes it helps to recognize what I love about myself, because I forget to love myself.

I love the calluses layered on my feet. They break and peel and build on top of each other and look completely disgusting, but they tell a story of steps and leaps and spins.

I love the shadow my lower lip casts on my chin. I only recently noticed it, and it's a unique and beautiful thing.

I love my hair (sometimes). It's thick and wavy and naturally blonde. I'd like it longer, I'd like it less frizzy and dry, but I take pride in my mane. It's wild.

I love that I can run four miles. I used to die running one lap in high school. (One year I asked my teacher if I could try skipping instead and she let me. I felt like a fairy.)

I love that I have opinions. I love that I can sometimes manage to voice them eloquently and convincingly.

I love that I am alive.