I’ve spent a lot of time in my life missing different kinds of people, wondering why "they didn’t love me enough, wondering why I wasn’t important enough, or wondering why I wasn’t good enough." I've kicked my own ass in my mind more times than I can count and it's awful. It's also pointless because those are all myths. I'd been punishing and blaming myself for things I didn’t understand and I never even really knew why? Some people deserved every minute and ounce of my time and others didn't deserve one f****** second of it.
Experiences with my dad, people who I thought were friends but weren’t, or relationships with any amount of heart trampling...it all confused me too deeply for too long. I've spent more time thinking about severed ties with people than you can imagine, but then one day the light just turned on so brightly it could’ve blinded me...
Out of nowhere, there was a moment of exact clarity. I don’t know where it hid for so long, but at least it came and I won’t complain.
I sat on my couch and I literally took a look insidemy mind at the people who do love me, who I am important to, who I am good enough for...the people who want me around because I make them laugh, because they know and appreciate the goodness of my heart and because they have chosen me as a necessary part of their lives. For each of them, I feel the exact same way and I am grateful. Anything good and real is never about one person chasing after another, fighting to keep a spot, or competing with someone or something else. That is ridiculous insanity. That is mental and emotional torture. That is misery. It’s never about living in a shadow of other people or things, and it’s never about having even one uncertainty. Ever.
Friendships, romantic relationships, and family relationships are equal give and take in love and there are absolutely no exceptions for that. None. Lopsided, one-sided, manipulative, condition-based interactions will always, always lead to resentment, bitterness, and dead ends.
Eventually and always, it does. It really does.
We don’t bribe people to stay. We don’t beg people to stay. We don’t guilt people to stay. If it’s sincere, we don’t have to do those things. In fact, they aren’t even thoughts. The people I missed...None of it was about me at all; it really never, ever was. Those close to me would tell me that constantly but still, I looked at it all wrong the entire time. I beat myself up way too hard for way too long, and it was for no reason at all. It had absolutely nothing to do with me...it had everything to do with them. It had everything to do with their own demons they were fighting, their own insecurities, their own unhappiness, or their own low self-esteem. I did my best. I played my own role as well as I could and gave everything good that I had. In truth, I was good enough then. I am good enough now. I know that...and I always will be. Always.