Darling, You Are Everything

You are everything.

You are made of stardust, a product of galactic evolution.

You are everyone that has ever crossed your path. Your mother’s smile and your father’s laugh and your sister’s support and your brother’s love. You are every friend you have ever made and every person you have ever lost. You are the teacher that inspired you and the coach that challenged you, the first person you ever loved and the last one who made you swear you’d never fall again. You are the people who haven’t had the pleasure of meeting you yet. You are everyone.

You are anxiety and insecurity. You are the first sting of rejection you experienced, the first time you realized you were not everyone’s cup of tea. The jealousy you felt when you were overlooked and the shame when you knew you had messed up. You are apprehension and confusion, wrapped in false confidence and second guessing. You are fear—fear of the future, fear of being alone, fear of falling, fear of failing. Fear of never being enough.

You are rage and contempt. The injustices you witnessed in the world and the helplessness you felt because of them. You are the people who disrespected you and the friend who breached your boundaries. You are the stranger who cut you off in traffic, the partner who repeatedly invalidated your feelings. You are the bitterness you felt when they left you, the numbness you preferred to the heartache.

You are anguish and sorrow. You are the grief you felt as you watched the casket shut and your heart implode. The despair that wrapped itself around you every morning, the kind that made it hard to breathe. You are the tears you shed in the shower that mingled with the steam. You are the depression you couldn’t talk about and all the ways you tried to mask it. You are isolation and loneliness, listening to the sound of your own heart shattering over and over again. Everything that has ever broken you.

But you are everything.

You are healing.

You are living. You are every wave you’ve witnessed crashing on the shore and every sunrise you got to observe. You are every sunny and rainy and snowy and windy morning you appreciated waking up to. The afternoon walks you took in the fall and the cool air you breathed deep. You are the little things you did to make it through those tough days, the small nods to self-care that kept you going. You are the time you took for yourself, the times you let your best efforts be enough.

You are growth. You are the pause before the answer, carefully reflecting on your thoughts. The realization that you have a voice and you are allowed to use it. You are taking up space and not shrinking yourself to fit in. You are understanding the world was never yours to hold up on your own and that admitting when you need help is strength. You are the pain that you allowed yourself to feel instead of running from it, the moment you became comfortable with being uncomfortable. You are the people you opened up to, the shoulders you allowed yourself to cry on until you had no tears left. The calm you felt afterwards, the weight lifting as you allowed vulnerability to take its place.

You are hope. You are the moments you realized you were hurting a little less each day and the first time you laughed after and how good it felt. You are setting goals and finding the willpower to conquer them while reaching higher. You are the courage to try new hobbies, to travel to new places, to meet new people. You are daydreams that you get lost in and then make your reality. You are first dates and all their awkwardness, first kisses in the back of quiet coffee shops. Toothless baby smiles and belly laughs and sleepy afternoon cuddles. Every moment that kept you looking forward to the next day. You are the patience and time you allowed yourself to feel whole again.

You are here. You are everything. You are imperfectly, exquisitely, terrifyingly human. You are love.