Choosing yourself
Choosing yourself doesn’t always start off beautifully
Sometimes it comes with strong winds and broken branches
until there’s no more leaves on your fruit tree that you tried to bear
Choosing yourself isn’t always beautiful
Most times it comes with heartaches and loneliness
just the right amount of tears to fill a bucket
Choosing yourself doesn’t always start beautifully
Most times it leaves you in a space where maybe considering not choosing yourself could fill a temporary happiness so you’re blind to the absence you’re feeling
and maybe that’s okay
Maybe that’s enough
Enough to get by that day
But one day the wind will calm down
and you’ll realize you’re still standing
even if the tree is bare
even if no one noticed how hard it was to walk away
So you let it fall
and you plant something new
something soft
something real
And maybe it’s not full yet
maybe it’s just a seed
but it’s yours
I don’t think people really understand what it’s like to grow up always feeling alone to have to teach yourself how to survive, how to think, how to move through life on your own terms. No one understands how loud your silence can be when your quietness has always been mistaken for strength. They don’t see how exhausting it is to only have yourself to depend on to know that if you fall too low, you might lose everything, even yourself.
Being alone has been both my greatest pain and my greatest teacher. It’s broken me and built me. It’s emptied me and filled me all at once. It’s brought me tears and joy, weakness and strength. It’s shaped how I think, how I love, and how I move through the world. Being alone feels empty, but somehow it’s also where I found the deepest parts of me.
