Day Four: Get Ready on the Inside

Prompt: Today use the same amount of time you take to get ready on the outside to get ready on the inside. Did you notice a difference in how you felt throughout the day? Explore why or why not.

I wasn't too excited for this challenge. I expected to sit on my bed and journal for an hour. And what would I journal about? The same thing I've been writing in my journal for the last two weeks. About how I'm confused and hot and cold. And I think about it often enough that I really didn't need to ponder about it for another hour.

So what did I do? I sat with a friend and listened. And ate, and talked, and walked, and watched. Let's be honest, I spend too much time with this boy already. But last night we spent a good five hours together, and it wasn't like our usual visits. Instead he opened up and I listened. And I tried to be supportive. It was his night and we were going to do what he wanted to do: eat at Panda Express. Maybe I pushed him too much trying to get him to tell me stories while we ate. But it was good to hear them. And as the night wound down on my couch with the apartment to ourselves but the sounds of my roommate on the stairs outside, I talked, and he listened. And he didn't judge me. And I talked about the hard stuff. About what happened to Jacob, about things I've never spoken aloud before, about blessings I'd been given and about how I don't usually feel beautiful, but I do when he is around.

Let's be honest, the night probably did a lot more for me than it did for him. But it was good to get things out in the open, to confide in someone, and to still feel like a good person afterward. And what's more important, is that last night I spent five hours in the presence of happiness. Yes, the simple act of Skyler J. Crouch sitting in the same room makes me incredibly happy. And that is how I got ready on the inside. By spending a long time feeling happy.