To The Girls Who Feel Like They Are Never Enough
You keep giving away pieces of yourself, hoping that something will stick. It happens over and over again, until you wake up one day and realize there’s nothing left of you. You’ve handed over every part of yourself to the most undeserving people. But you will survive. You will build yourself back up. You will learn. And it will take time.
Maybe it’s because you’re not soft. Maybe he thinks you’re too loud, too crass or not ladylike. Maybe your heart is a wild thing that cannot be tamed. Maybe it’s because you’re not nurturing enough; you don’t fawn over him. But that’s okay. It’s okay not to be soft. You’re loud because your voice needs to be heard. You know what you want out of life. You will learn not to shrink yourself down for the sake of love, because no good ever comes from that. If he does not love you as the person you present yourself to be, if he does not cherish those pieces of yourself that you give to him, it is time to leave.
You are enough. Keep telling yourself that.
There will be times where you still try. You do things that make you swallow your pride, things that make you question your sense of self. Maybe it’s a pie you baked even though you can’t bake, and you burnt your palms. You will shrink yourself down and stop eating.
You will try to be smaller, quieter. You will tell yourself that it is compromise, while he sits back and watches you unfold. You lay yourself bare, while your entire body is screaming for you to stop, but you still do it for the sake of being enough. You surrender and try to fill yourself, become something that will resemble “enough”. Stop doing that. Stop rearranging yourself. You are absolutely enough the way you are.
You will feel empty when they all walk away. You will feel exhausted and taken advantage of. You tried so hard. You always do. You give so much of yourself away. But they always leave for someone else. It happens so often that you start to expect it. You can read the signs. But you can’t stop trying.
You think you need somebody else to soothe that raw, aching part of your heart—but you don’t.
Learning how to love yourself is a difficult thing. You will stand in the mirror and make lists. You will have a definitive list of reasons why they left, why you’re alone at 3AM and full of holes, trying to fill the empty spaces. You will get angry and try to reclaim the pieces of yourself that you’ve given away. But with that anger will also come the realization that those people were unworthy. You will learn who to give yourself to and whom you should stay away from. It will take time.