Nocturnal Anomaly

I need to learn how to see past all the superficial shit.

Not the world. Me.

Because the truth is, I’ve spent my entire life comparing myself. I’ve never really been okay with who I was. There was always something I thought needed to be thinner, prettier, better, different. And that’s what I need to change now.

Because underneath all of that shit, I actually know who I am.

I have a beautiful smile, but an even more beautiful heart. I am my mother’s daughter. I love hard. When someone’s world falls apart, I’m the person who stays. I’ll sit beside you in the darkest place you’ve ever been, pick up whatever you can’t carry, and carry it until you can stand again.

And maybe it’s time I finally recognize that those things are fucking beautiful too.

What most people don’t know is that it’s been over eight and a half years since I made myself sick.

There was a time I weighed 126 pounds, could see my sternum standing normally, looked in the mirror, and still thought I was fat.

Eight and a half years ago, someone who loved me asked me to promise I wouldn’t do that to myself anymore.

And I kept my fucking promise.

Whatever happens in life doesn’t erase the love that helped me make that promise. But I’m the one who has chosen, every single day since, to keep it.

So when I look at my body now and start tearing myself apart, I need to remember what I’m actually looking at.

This body isn’t evidence that I failed.

It’s evidence that I stopped destroying myself.

I’ve survived depression. I’ve fought my way through days I didn’t think I could. I’ve kept promises nobody else knew I was still keeping. I’ve been the person who runs into the fire for the people I love, and somewhere along the way, I finally started learning how to run into that fucking fire for myself too.

I don’t need to become the woman I used to be.

I need to finally learn to love the woman I already am.

Because for all the years I’ve spent convincing myself I wasn’t enough, at my core, I’ve always known one thing:

I’m a fucking good person.

Maybe it’s finally time I let that matter more than the mirror.