Worthy

 I'm trying.

I'm trying to remember who I was as a carefree little girl who didn't have a clue that I'd someday equate my worthiness to my weight, to my marriage, to my whole outward appearance.

Sometimes I try to dig deep and remember her but often times, I find it impossible.
She seems impossible.
Did she really even exist?

I've thought so much about all of the events in my life and how they've shaped me, good and bad.
There is a lot of bad, friends. 
Because the world told me that unless I was skinny, I wasn't pretty. The world told me that without money, I would never be happy. The world told me that unless I had a boyfriend or a husband, I must not be good enough.
This didn't come from one source. It seemed to come from every corner I would turn. Magazines. Commercials. Movies. Even the Disney shows I watched seemed to be telling me my best plan for happiness was to be skinny and always have a boy to love me.
I believed those things. 
Hell, I still believe those things...

I remember in high school, I liked this boy. We were in marching band together and during football season, we would spend hours on Friday nights together, either on a bus or in the band room. I would think about it all week and hope that this was the week---the week he would cuddle with me or kiss me or something! I just wanted him to show me my worth! I wanted him to prove to me that I was beautiful!

It never happened.
Instead, he dated my best friend and I got to watch from the sidelines, as my heart felt like shattering.

This was my real life in high school. Not very many other things mattered. I didn't really care about my school work---I just wanted to feel loved. I was searching for worthiness. And might I add, I was searching for worthiness in all of the wrong places.

I wasted so much of my high school experience, waiting for someone to love me---never realizing that the most important thing would be loving myself.

I never found my worthiness in high school. I don't even know if I can say I found my worthiness after high school.
In fact, I think I can confidently say that I didn't find my worthiness after high school.
I got married, had two babies, became a stay-at-home-mom, and suddenly, I found myself divorced.

Divorced. Overweight. Worthless.

I think I had convinced myself that I knew my worth when I was married. But the thing is, I was married---I had a man who automatically proved my worthiness---and when that was over, I found myself struggling all over again---and even more-so since the rejection hurt so much worse this time.

I don't think I've ever really taken the time to think about my worth as an individual daughter of God. I've seen glimpses but I don't know if I've ever had the opportunity to really grasp it before.

A part of me finds this concept to be foreign and highly unreachable. But then there is the part of me filled with faith and hope, yearning to feel as loved as my God intended me to be.

I don't quite know where to start, to begin this healing journey of my worth. I feel like I've taken so many different roads and each one of them has taught me something but I still doubt. I'm still so afraid that without marriage and weight loss, I won't be able to reach my full potential as the woman I want to be. I still feel somewhat worthless and abandoned and fearful of the future. I still question whether the people who say they love me really do---or whether they're just in my life because they feel sorry for me.

I'm at a point in my journey where I'm confused and as much as I hate being confused, I think this is where I'm supposed to be. I think I'm going to let myself stay confused until I can learn in my own time what my individual worth is.

I think it's ok that I don't have all the answers right now.

They'll come when I'm ready for them.

In the meantime, I'm going to hold on.

I'm going to try not to freak out over how busy life is and how much time I lose every day with my kids and my friends.
I'm going to continue on in school and get myself one step closer to my end goals.

And I'm going to try to love my life as much as possible. Whatever that looks like to me.
Some days, it might be only five minutes and other days, it'll last hours.
But I'm going to enjoy the moments where I'm not anxious and scared and angry.

I'm going to try to be authentic to myself.