Just A Reminder

Hey you! Yeah you!

I see you trying to hide. I see you trying to do it all by yourself. Your shoulders are tight with knots from pulling those heavy pieces of your past. You don’t want to be an imposition. You don’t deserve the help. That’s what you tell yourself. You want to prove that you are good enough to hold up your end of the bargain. You don’t want any favors. You don’t want to owe anything to anyone. You could never pay them back. They say the borrower is a slave to the lender. You don’t want to be anyone’s slave. You’ve been taken advantage of. You fear taking advantage of someone else. You stay out of sight. You do what you can but it’s never enough, not in your eyes. You’re lost inside. Spinning in circles, looking for something that will make you satisfied with yourself. You should be farther along. You should have a plan and be able to figure out the next step. It floods you day and night. The more you try to find the answer, the next step or the strength you have lost, the more overwhelmed you become. “I’m not worth it”, you say.  “I’ve spent my life wrongly and anything right in me that others see is a sham”. I know how you feel. You wonder how anyone could love you. You don’t love yourself. It’s written on your face. You run when things become more than you can handle. You hide when the answers are hard too face. You hate that about yourself but you’ve never dealt with hard things head-on. You find the quickest way to dodge a bullet. You side step the truth as if avoiding it will make it go away. You haven’t done the right thing. You know it.  You’ve hurt the ones you love. You don’t know how to fix it so you don’t acknowledge it. You pretend it isn’t there. Still, on the inside you roll in disappointment and wade in regret. You cuddle up to inadequacy and bed down with self-hatred. Shame is the blanket you that keeps you down.

But…

Don’t you know that you are enough? It’s all an illusion; those things in your head. You can fight back. You must throw off shame. Believe that your mistakes are meant for learning and growing but you are not a mistake. All the stuff that others think, it doesn’t matter. You won’t be lost without your pride. Your walls, I know they provide a place to hide but it’s a false sense of security. You are the strongest when you trust and are open. Stop looking around at others for validation and stop trying to stuff yourself into the box in which they live. Who says that you should have already reached that line in the sand? “They” are not you and you are not “they”. That is ok. Believe it. Believe that you are loved exactly as you are; with all your flaws and all your failings. Believe that what you have to offer is unique and no one is more qualified than you. Believe that some days others need you and other days, you need them. It’s not a slave-master thing. It’s a give-and-take-friendship thing. Let go of the past. Let go of disappointment and regret. Their comfort is like a boa constrictor. They are squeezing the life out of you but you have the strength to cut them loose. Stop punishing yourself for all the ways you think you don’t measure up. Open your eyes and see the value of who you are. You deserve to live. You are worthy of love.