I Want Me

I've always been afraid that people wouldn't want me. Divorce seems to be the ultimate confirmation of that fear. But tonight, I realized that I have always kept myself small, limited - I've prevented myself from being a whole person - because I wanted other people to like me.

I'm tired of folding up my soul. It's possible no one else wants my whole heart, mind, and soul - the deep, beautiful, unique masterpiece that those things comprise. It's entirely possible there is not a single person on this earth who wants all of that. Except for me.

Tonight I sat in my car and cried. Cried because I hurt over being turned away. Cried because I realized that, throughout my entire marriage - throughout my life, really - I was never whole. Never. I always kept myself small in an effort to please other people - in an effort to make myself wanted.

I cried because I realized that Stephen didn't reject the true me. He rejected the small me. The piecemeal me. The mirror me. How could he have rejected the true me if I haven't let myself be her?

I cried because I realized that I've been making myself small again. Why is this pattern so hard to break? Why does it feel so terrifying to be the true, whole, messy me?

I cried because I realized that, even if no one else wants the vastness of my true self, I do. I want me. I want all of me. I want the deep, dark, beautiful, bright, odd, unique, silly, broken, and brilliant parts of me.

I want me.

I want all of me.

I want the whole me.