Choosing Team Jessica

I am an empathetic, loyal person who always is rooting for others to open their eyes to opportunities to take advantage of, bad situations to avoid or get out of, and live an overall great life. This week I realized, however, I'm not always rooting for myself.

The past few weeks, almost every important person in my life from my family to my friends to my coworkers have explicitly (and unprompted) expressed to me in their own way that they are on my team. That they believe in me, are fully supportive and dedicated to Team Jessica, and are rooting for me to find beauty and greatness in life.

I'm not always very good at taking compliments or listening to people about matters like this, but for once, I really sat, listened, and questioned why it made me so uncomfortable. Then it hit me. 

I felt uncomfortable because my family & friends were all rooting for Team Jessica, but I wasn't rooting for Team Jessica.

My past few weeks have been spent rooting for others to wake up to not miss out on something amazing, to live a beautiful life, to get everything they deserve in life, but I haven't been rooting for myself.

During this same time, I was also subconsciously avoiding wearing my Claddagh ring which I usually wear the majority of the days of the week. Some days, I would look at it in my dish of rings and just not feel like wearing it and other days, I would feel uncomfortable thinking about wearing it. I now realize, it was more than just thinking it didn't go with my outfit that day.

For those of you unfamiliar with Claddagh rings, they are a traditional Irish ring standing for friendship, love, and loyalty. The hands on the ring symbolize friendship, the heart symbolizes love, and the crown symbolizes loyalty. When worn with the crown facing inward towards the person, it means she is single and her loyalty lies to herself. When worn with the crown facing outward away from the person, it means she is in a relationship and her loyalty lies with someone else. 

I've been avoiding wearing it because for the past few weeks, I have been loyal to many other things in my life and to a specific opportunity that has already passed instead of being loyal to and rooting for myself.

Today, however, I put on my Claddagh ring and chose Team Jessica. 

And it feels good to be rooting for the home team.