The Parts I Don't Perform

I don’t know maybe this is the season where you learn to sit with yourself and be alone with your thoughts. To be content with the person who lives in your head, controlling everything you think, speak, and do.

Don’t you want to be happy with your own shadow? Not the one you perform, not the one people applaud, but the silent one that lies beside you in bed at night.

I saw something that said, “I found beauty in everyone but myself.” It made me pause. I reflected and came to the conclusion that I do have confidence just only in a performative way. But don’t we all? The kind of confidence that knows how to be likable, how to impress.

I wouldn’t want to be anyone else, but I don’t know if I love myself without hesitation. I love parts of myself, and I would do anything to give younger me a hug the naive, child version of me.

So why do I second guess every decision I make? Why can’t I trust my gut? It feels like a stranger offering advice, like the voice isn’t even my own. If I loved who I am, wouldn’t I always do what’s best for me? Wouldn’t I have an undying love and respect for the human I am?

Why do I put myself in conversations and situations that empty me, that drain me emotionally and mentally, until my eyes are swollen from crying and I’m so numb my body forgets how to form another tear.

Anxiety lives in my blood and bones to the point where I don’t think I’ll ever be without it. It’s fine, I suppose. Being hyper aware of almost everything that could go wrong at any moment isn’t that exhausting.... The more I fight it, the worse it becomes, so sometimes I let my mind consume me, just to see where it takes me.

Maybe this isn’t a weakness. Maybe this is me learning how to love myself in my entirety. <3