Today Sarah came to me and asked if she could cut the hair on more of her plastic ponies. I'm talking about the "pretty ponies" that purposely have really long hair so you can have fun brushing it. I already had let her trim a few awhile back. I asked her if she was really okay with them having short hair. She said yes, so I said go ahead, they're your ponies. She then told me that I was "such a nice mom" and ran off to make all her ponies bald. Its as simple as that. Her compliment warmed my heart.
I've often pondered why I have so much trouble accepting compliments from other people in my life. I'm still not sure why I cringe when someone says something nice to me. I almost always feel as if it has other meanings and is only disguised as a compliment. If someone tells me it looks like I lost weight I can only think how they must have thought I looked fat before. If they tell me my children are well behaved I wonder what they'd think if they saw them in a moment when they weren't being well behaved. Sometimes I feel a compliment is a person's way of telling me that today I have succeeded in fitting into society but be careful about tomorrow. If they notice how good I am, they would definitely notice if I wasn't being so good. I'm reading between the lines and I don't like what's written there. Since I've slowly grown more secure in myself as a person, and I have less of a need for compliments, I think my tolerance for insincerity has gone down.
Sarah's compliment was heartfelt and simple. And that's why its so easy to accept.
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