Before I met you

Before I met you,

I had an eating disorder.  I was depressive and alone and everything that goes along with it.  I completely pushed everyone away from me and threw myself into making money to be stable.  I was constantly planning for a future where I would maybe be a little happier.

I would get home at night, after a long day of kissing ass and making sure I looked-the-look of a well, put together, Christian girl, who had her life all figured out, and I would lay in bed at night and tell myself these completely damaging sentences over, and over, “ You are not smart enough, you will never be beautiful, and you are not worth anything.”.

Before I met you,

Those words became the very existence of my self-worth and confidence.  I lived in a way that made absolutely sure that I wouldn’t be worthy of anything good or be successful in anything, although I was convinced that my words were the only truth to make me a better person.

Before I met you,

Loneliness weighed me down.  I had no family to help me and I had pushed every single person away that would maybe be able to help me.

Before I met you,

I wasn’t worth it to help, because in every ounce of my being, I had already defined myself as worthless.  I would hope to push myself to exhaustion because the thoughts that plagued my mind were that it would just be easier to not be alive. I would sit and wonder every day why it was my brother who died instead of me because he was a person that everyone loved.

….

After I met you,

I started slowly learning how to love myself and I’m still learning because words, in a certain string of order, have such a deteriorating, life-long effect.

You’d build me up in both a way with words but mostly in a way of actions, and I’d sit there thinking, how could someone who carries herself the way that she does, care for me more than I care for myself?  The way you looked at me, and the way you treated me—it was after I met you—that I learned what confidence and loving yourself really meant.

Before I met you,

I wasn’t aware that another person couldn't fulfill my happiness.  You showed me that the only way to having joy in your life is being content and happy with where you are in the present.

After I met you,

I saw the genuine patience and kindness that I had been taught all of my life.  The thing is, you knew none of this about me and nothing about how I was slowing learning self-worth.  And believe it or not, I didn’t find happiness in another person, I found it exactly where I didn’t want to be. And that was me.

…

The ‘before’s’ I met you sometimes get intertwined with the ‘afters’ because I’m still trying to sort them out and change those thoughts daily, because now I know that the lows in my life-- they all have to be meant for something.

The people who think I’ve always had my life figured out… They are still watching me. --and before I met you—I would write blog posts like this, only to delete all the words that could make me look vulnerable.

Because after I met you,

I would see you right where I met you first, and that was in the reflection I saw in the mirror. I still have a hard time sorting the “before’s and afters” out, but that’s okay because this isn’t a letter to anyone but myself.  I am the only one who can truly see me.