Oh, So You Love A Type 3?

Oh, so you love a Type 3? 

If you’re reading this, you either love a type 3 or you are one and are curious about yourself because, well, it’s who we are. 3’s-calm down and take the back seat for a moment (I know how much you love that) because this is for all of the folks who have to deal with us on an intimate level. 

To the outside world, 3’s are the full package-we are driven, determined to climb to the top, often successful in most things that we do (if we aren’t, we practice and drill ourselves until we are!), attractive, charming, and energetic. Before you think I’m lathering myself and fellow 3’s in compliments, know that there’s a darkness that accompanies being a 3 if we lean towards a stressed wing and not a growth wing. 

While maintaining the image of a role-model, or living a life of “What can they NOT DO?”, 3’s can tend to be workaholics and sometimes so driven to advancement, it becomes an obsession rather than a passion. Augustus Caesar was a 3, okay? Sit on that. 

3’s are often the “stars” of the world, but can become so success-driven, that they cast aside emotions, fearing they would get in the way. When you’re a 3, you’re able to take emotions, box them up, tape the box shut, and put them in the attic when you need to work and get things done. As a 3, I’m able to know that when I’m at work, it’s time to work and be “on” because I need to. Those pesky emotions can wait, right?! Oftentimes, this causes us to come off as cold and withdrawn (let’s face it, sometimes we are just that). 

When we’re healthy, you will love us- we become Lance Armstrong and Oprah. We want to encourage others to their successes because we know how it feels! However, if you love a 3, you know that being a healthy 3 is daily work-we constantly have the need to achieve, achieve, achieve until we suffer lingering on our shoulders. 

This tendency to long to achieve in all areas can cause us to become unbalanced in the areas that REALLY matter, because we are too busy pursuing something to shine another light on us (ouch, but true). If we aren’t kept in check, family is typically what falls to the wayside for a 3–hey kids, I got goals to chase, okay? 

Reality moment-I’m afraid to take 12 weeks maternity leave soon because I’ll have to leave work. Sounds awful, doesn’t it? But, we don’t mean it to be. We are torn between the many passions that we love to juggle and trust me, we feel worse about this characteristic than any judgement you could pass on us. 

Those who love me know to slowly keep whispering that those 12 weeks are needed and work will be around when I come back. 

3’s won’t respond well to emotional outbursts because we don’t understand them. 

3’s come across as cold and detached, but often this is a front-we long to be loved, touched and affirmed consistently by those close to us. 

3’s need to be forced to rest. If you love us, find a way to encourage us to slow down. 

3’s want to see you successful too (when we’re healthy!)-so if we keep bugging you about going back to school, picking up a new skill, pursuing a certification or a new goal, that’s why! 

3’s want to know they’re doing a good job. A random word that we’re a good leader, that you see us, will make our entire week. We will hold onto that encouragement when we feel like we aren’t doing enough. 

3’s may act competitive towards you, but in reality, we are in constant competition with ourselves above all else and can be heartbreakingly harsh and self-critical towards ourselves. 

Lastly, if you love a 3, know that we really do need you. I know we come across as independent, often hard, the kind of person that could leave your friendship in a moment’s notice and not give two rips—-

But in reality, you keep us grounded. Plus, if you weren’t around, we’d have only ourselves to compete against and what fun is that? ;) 

Love (or whatever), 

A Type 3 

https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/type-3

Pickles and Night Terrors

I have been warned of every symptom.

I have researched every ache and twinge-

“You’ll be so sick! You’re going to crave the weirdest stuff. You’ll get swollen. You’re going to be so tired. Just wait. Just wait. Just wait.” 

None of these happened to me, but something else did-and nobody warned me of it. Instead of horror stories of no sleep, pickles, and round ligament pain, I wish they had warned me of how painful the love and anxiety for my unborn child would be. 

Nobody told me I would count her movements as I googled miscarriage statistics. 

Nobody told me I would lay in bed awake on the days she didn’t move as much, because I’m afraid. 

I’m so afraid and so in love. 

Nobody told me I would look back at my toilet paper even on month six, because I’m so afraid and so in love. 

Nobody told me I would wake up from night terrors because I dreamed of her face and it was too beautiful to possibly ever be real, because I’m so afraid and so in love. 

Nobody told me I would stay awake wondering what I would do if the world was cruel to her, because I’m so afraid and so in love. 

Nobody told me that ensuring her existence would consume me, overshadowing daily tasks, because I’m so afraid and so in love.

Everybody warns you of the physical pain that comes with growing life, but nobody warns you of how painful it is to love someone so much that it terrifies you. 

Forming the intricate parts of her seems secondary in labor-arteries like pathways, vessels like tunnels, and organs like a well-balanced orchestra.

Guaranteeing she will breathe the same air that I breathe on a Saturday morning as her father makes breakfast, that she will feel me push her to touch the sky in a park swing, that she will snuggle me as we watch cartoons- this is the labor, the struggle, the pain. 

I am so in love and so afraid. 

Made From Scratch

Today marks six years of living in Missouri, but more important, of owning my story---of holding the pen, of being okay with not having an eraser at the end of my writing tool, allowing each scribble, scratch, line drawn through a word, to tell my messy story. I think it's important to note that we cannot only know our story and expect better results, but we must own it and we must be okay sharing it, exposing it, and tending to it with great care and love. 

I have re-created myself since moving here, so it would be rather easy to float through my new life without exposing the first 23 chapters of it. Nobody would ever know---just doggy-ear those pages, say they aren't important, they're not worth reading, that nobody wants to "see that", or tear them out altogether.

Can we ever understand or accept the entire story, appreciate the ending, without the start--or taking it a step further, the ugly, messy, chicken-scratch of a draft?

Today marks six years of crossing a state's border in the middle of the night, clothes thrown a muck in my backseat, trunk, and floorboard--maybe a dog thrown back there somewhere. Physically shaking, blurred vision through tears, a parent's voice of reason bouncing around my head--yet, I drove. I drove on. I was afraid, but I took the pen. I scribbled--

Chapter 24-Made From Scratch. 

Owning your story isn't some easy thing that you can just do and it's over with. Owning your story is waking up every day determined to create yourself anew, many or most days, absolutely terrified. I believe that many of the things worth doing, creating, writing, jumping towards, are so ridiculous, so insane, irrational even, that 95% of people talk themselves out of ever making a move (physically/emotionally/financially).

You can't tiptoe into the waters of your own story--you have to jump. This isn't a kiddie pool, it's a freaking ocean and if you don't start swimming towards something a little scary, the worse thing will happen to you-

No, you won't drown. Worse. 

You'll learn to just float. You'll learn to lay down in the waters of your own story and let the rip tides carry you wherever they may, with no direction, no fire, no drive, no terrifying, falling moments with the reward of the landing.

I miss the people I love that I left behind. I cry each time I leave my mother's kiss to the forehead, my father's award-winning hugs to his chest, my sister's laughter. I miss them so much that sometimes I have to jump in the car and go see them. Each time I arrive, I am happy--but, each time I leave to return to Chapter 24, I smile and know that I didn't simply land in this part of the story on accident--
I created it myself.

I took all of the lovely, terrifying, devastating, precious ingredients from all of the previous chapters and made something out of it. I think we confuse starting over with throwing out everything that actually made us who we are. 

Don't throw out the pain, the divorce, the losses, the screw-ups, the dark parts--those ingredients are needed too. Own those parts, write them into the recipe. Then, find new, exciting ones and add those in too.

Own your story. 
All of it. 
Gather all of the darkness and all of the light.

Then-and only then, can you make yourself from scratch.