How do I present myself to others in a positive way ?

I’ve never had a huge amount of self confidence.

I’ve never been the life of the party or the cool girl who people wanted to hang around with. Instead I’ve always felt like I live around the edges of the groups rather than in them.

Even when I was in my late teens and early twenties I didn’t think I was very attractive ( I look back now and wish I still looked like I did then-talk about not appreciating what you had till it was gone! )

With age is supposed to come wisdom and I guess I’ve developed a bit of that over the years.With the Lord’s help I’ve worked on some of the rough edges and I don’t think I’m as judgemental as I used to be. I’ve learnt that even if I do have stong views on how things should be done that I have to back off and let others do things their way. I try to wait till I’m invited to do so before I give advice. I know that I still have a bad habit of jumping into conversations immediately I think of something rather than waiting till the other person is finished – got to work on that one more!

I certainly think I have a better dress sense now than I used to. I have some dear friends who tell me that they like and appreciate me. Of course a broken marriage doesn’t help…. no matter how much I know there were lots of factors involved, I still feel at times that it was because I wasn’t worth loving.

I know that God loves me, but I still often feel like He can’t love me as much as He loves others – once again my head knows how untrue this is but my heart still holds onto the lie.

I’m not writing this for sympathy and for people who know me to rush to validate me….. although it’s always nice to receive that assurance even if I then go on to dismiss it.

There are two factors that have led to this navel gazing

1) In a couple of weeks I’m going to a class reunion (I was going to go to the last one but couldn’t as I was in hospital at the time)
2) I have to write a profile of myself for something

I’m sure 99% of people heading to meet up with former classmates experience the insecurity associated with this experience. Especially after 42 years. I had a fairly decent figure back then. My beautiful auburn hair was slightly wavy and fairly long. I wasn’t burdened with the back, shoulder and rheumatoid arthritis health issues I have now. The world was full of promise for me. Even though I’ve done some interesting things and had some wonderful experiences my current world is much more limited. I’m feeling nervous and hoping that I won’t spend the evening sitting by myself staring into a drink.

The second one is even worse. I don’t know what to say about myself. How do I start….. I guess saying ‘Hi my name is Kathie and I’m 60, overweight,divorced and got some disabilities’ isn’t really going to tell the story of me in a very positive way!

How DO you put onto paper who you are?