Self improvement is great but ultimately? you have to accept your self. Yes you can eat better, exercise more, read more, set boundaries, love your self, but it all comes down to this. Some days you won’t have the energy to do any of these things. And you’ll look in the mirror and think that this is not enough. That’s a lie. The biggest love for self is to live slowly. To rest. To really rest. Have a nap. Eat what makes you feel good. Read if you want to. Embrace yourself and accept that you cannot and will not be ever be perfect. Accept that you are good enough. You don’t need to keep busy all the time. you don’t need to go out all the time and post on instagram. You don’t need to journal if you don’t want to. You don’t need to make art if you don’t want to. Breathe, give yourself grace and compassion. Give yourself the love and tenderness you so badly need. Be gentle with yourself. You are trying and it is good enough. You are good enough.
over time the thing i have had more access to - through healing, maybe, or because i got out of that house, or because i was lucky, or because of those who taught me, or all of it - was this sense of a type of love that was all-encompassing and easy. nonromantic; it wasn’t anything rose-colored but rather a world seen through honey.
it is this sense that i am in love with birds, and puddles, and how the nose of my dog moves. i am in love with my best friend’s hands, and i am in love with your eyes, and i am in love with the little blades of wildflowers turning their heads towards the sun. today my mother told me one of my favorite flowers - lily of the valley - is endangered. i almost wept. i love them, i said.
when i was younger, and i said i am staying for the love, i thought love could only fit into a single birdwing. like a nesting doll; you could only find love somewhere balled up; hidden. you had to pry first, unlock. it would not absolve; only give you a moment’s rest. somehow i thought - that was all.
oh but. this love, now. a love of how trains move, and how clouds scud the blue, and how when i asked does anyone have a bandaid i received offers from each person in the room. it is the love of a grey sunday and of mixing paint and of jazz music and seeing my neighbor sigh while he leashes his dog. this sense that it is all lovely and magical, that it is all romantic. the sense that i am in love with breakfast foods and i am in love with book nooks and i am in love with poetry and plants and how you braid your hair and how we shift our weight at the bus stop; and how each of these flood me, effortless and sleepy, like a memory of something i learned as a baby.
i think tomorrow for practice i will teach myself how to love the grey carpet of my ratty apartment; and how the fibers all hold hands with each other and snuggle into bed together, their forms all spooning. i think tonight i will love how my yoga mat leaves little imprints on my knees; a marathon of sticky kisses where the grooves all begged stay with me please. i think i will love the melon rind and i will love the ugly dark bruise.
while we’re at it - although we are apart and have never met, i think right now, dear reader. i love you.
• Sometimes doing what’s best for you won’t feel the best, sometimes it’ll feel like the worst decision ever. Keep in mind that decisions that work in our favor in the long run can still be difficult decisions to make in the moment.
• No matter how many screw ups you make you will always be able to get back to yourself, no matter how elevated you become or how messed up you feel—you’ll always be able to return.
•You deserve genuine connections, transparency, honesty, elevation, and happiness. When you finally get the chance to experience people and spaces that satisfy your heart remember that it wasn’t by chance, it wasn’t because you were having a good month or year. It’s not one of those moments when everything good is happening and then the rain comes, embrace these moments because they are earned.
• you don’t have to be loved by everyone. Again, everyone doesn’t have to love you. It does not take away from you, it doesn’t lessen your ability, your worth, or your being. You are whole with or without them.
• Someone somewhere, right this moment anticipates the moment they’ll get to meet someone like you. I know it sounds crazy but think about how many people you’ve created it your own head.
