Tonight, you’re feeling strangely comfortable. You did what you needed to today to choose yourself — and damn, doesn’t that feel good? You’re writing and drawing, reading for fun, walking in the sunshine, and giving yourself the permission to not respond to texts or conversations you don’t want to. This is what choosing yourself looks like.
And yet, there’s a little voice in your head that berates you for these choices. That tells you you’re being selfish. You should responded to that text, you should have spent the day doing something useful, and you should feel guilty about wasting your time. But today, even if it is just for today, you quiet the voice. You are in control.
Today, you reflect on the tiny steps you’ve taken towards choosing yourself. It’s a powerful feeling, especially after choosing someone else for so many years. You’re taking a class that’s entirely devoted to something you want to do. You’re learning, growing, and evolving past the stagnation you felt for years. You’re becoming yourself, wholly and truly, again.
It’s so funny because you keep having flashbacks to the last time you started to feel like this. They hit you without warning and it feels so familiar. It’s a comfort, especially when there’s still so much unknown. The last time you felt like this, it was after that other incredibly painful breakup. You know, the one that drove you to leave the city you loved, the friends you had made, and the job you you knew…all for entirely unknown circumstances. Let’s be honest — that should have broken you. It almost did. But you survived and more importantly, you came out the other side so much stronger.
It was those little moments that empowered you. They reminded you of what joy and happiness felt like again. Those little moments stayed with you for years. Remember that sunshine-filled drive to Trader Joe’s with the windows down? You sang with the radio for the first time in months and felt a sense of peace. Remember the time you were lying in your bed at night and thought about what you had lost — but you didn’t cry? It made you realize you were stronger than the pain someone wanted to inflict upon you. Your entire perspective changed in that one small moment — and for the first time, you realized that the loss was, in fact, his.
You started finding your footing again. It was slow going and painstaking. Please don’t forget that. The new world you entered brought its own challenges, its own moments of heartbreak, and its own feelings of hopelessness. You remember crying on the front stoop of your new home just a few months in, wondering if you’d ever find love again. Remember what you said to your dad said to you that night? It was so calm — just you and the city you were falling in love with, event though you couldn’t see it. You said you had so much love you wanted to give someone, if only you could find that person. And your dad said, that’s exactly why you will.
Now you sit here and have the same thought. The tears still come and you think how you just want someone to give your love to. But now a second thought hits you, and it’s maybe the most important one you’ve had yet. You want to be loved in return.
In fact, you realize you deserve to be loved. You’ve been searching for a reason in all this. Searching for some meaning. Searching for a “why” amidst chaos of the last several months. Maybe if you walk away with nothing else, you walk away with this: it’s no longer enough to just love someone. You deserve to be loved in return.
You had a friend during those tough times who was a gift from God. During a tear-filled night of emotional catharsis, she wrote something on a bar napkin for you — YOU DESERVE LOVE. You kept that napkin for years. Even when you found love — and no one can take that fact away from you — you held onto that napkin.
What she wrote is no less true now, even though that love has disappeared. You. Deserve. Love. Say it out loud. Say it in your mind as you drift off to sleep. Repeat it over and over until you believe it. Because my sweet, strong, incredibly powerful girl, you do.
