I Don’t Know How To Choose Me, Yet.

So now I’m supposed to “find myself,” and I’m realizing I don’t entirely know what that means.

Because apparently my first instinct isn’t self-discovery. It’s distraction.

Anything that keeps me from sitting still too long to feel this. I’ve made plans I know I’m not emotionally ready for. I’ve opened doors I probably have no business opening right now. Not because I’m looking for someone to replace what I lost, but because distraction feels easier than sitting alone with everything I’m trying to process. And somehow, even in that, my people-pleasing tendencies have found a way to show themselves. I’ve been completely honest that I don’t want to be the one making decisions right now. I don’t want to think about what someone else wants from me or whether I’m doing the right thing. There is a strange relief in just saying, you decide. Tell me what to do. Tell me I’m doing a good job. Let me shut my brain off for a minute and just exist without carrying the responsibility of figuring everything out.

And if that doesn’t expose the people pleaser in me, I don’t know what does.

There is something almost painfully revealing about realizing that even in my rebellion, even in this supposed era of finally choosing myself, part of me is still looking for someone else to tell me who to be.

Maybe that’s what this healing actually has to be about.

Not becoming some completely different woman. Not proving that I’m over him. Not filling every empty space with another person, another plan, another distraction, or another version of myself.

Maybe it’s learning how to sit in the uncomfortable silence long enough to hear my own voice again.

To make a decision without wondering whether somebody else approves of it. To want something without needing permission to want it. To say no without guilt. To say yes because I actually mean yes. To praise myself instead of constantly needing someone else to tell me I’m worthy.