By I didn’t know you would come knocking at my door last night when I was almost ready to call it a night. You never seem to care about timing either way. I could show you back to the door but you tend to enter so smoothly and make yourself at home, making it hard to ask you to leave.
We have known each other for so long yet your visits are so unplanned that you still feel like a stranger on most instances.
There’s still a sense of familiarity though like those relatives that you only meet at gatherings that you barely seem to know. But you do know them because you have seen them for years. That’s exactly how I see you.
You both have similarities too, you know.
You both tend to get too interested in our lives, try to belittle our own existence, you remind us about the times when we failed to achieve our goals and we nested back to our cocoons instead of getting out and fly.
I wonder if you took any joy in it. In making me feel like I wasn’t good enough.
Like the stretch marks on my body are ugly or the scars on my face made me less beautiful.
When I didn’t get a good score in exams, you made me believe I wasn’t good at studying.
When I didn’t get into my favorite college, you made me feel like I failed myself.
The time when I fumbled on stage, you made sure I re-lived that moment and never stepped on stage again.
You made me feel unworthy in friendships and relationships.
I failed to impress people at work once, so now you make me distrust my hard-work and knowledge.
You made me question my creativity because you showed me others who were far more brilliant at it, than me.
You leave me crippled with anxiety and thoughts each time you visit. You make me experience feelings I never want to experience ever again. And yet, you get to come back to my life over and over again.
You come during moments when I least want you to and over stay your welcome (which isn’t even a welcome btw). You tell me things that make me doubt my own presence, you make me believe things that will be farthest from the truth.
That one time when I needed you to stay away the most so I could make it through the biggest event of my life, you refused to acknowledge my wishes.
That’s the day when I realized may be the fault isn’t yours but mine.
I have let you seep into my veins and my brain; I have let you have control over my life on occasions. I wish I didn’t give you that power and yet,
I somehow did.
You make me forget my own worth because I have let you and others believe I am not deserving or good enough for the joys I get. I accept your notions because it is easier to let doubt reside than to fight it out and prove it wrong.
But you know what?
I am deserving and worthy of everything even if I don’t entirely believe it yet. There’s a voice in the back of my head reassuring me of that. I am choosing to listen to that than you.
Because even though I let your ugly bloody thoughts run through me – it cannot change me, it cannot take away the efforts I make, however big or small. It cannot make me unsee the love, the blessings from people that care. It cannot erase my past successes. So, I’ll still shine through when it’s my time.
Someday, I’ll be able to show you to the door when I understand my true worth.
Till then, you are welcome to be an estranged visitor with limited visiting hours because I know I’ll not be able to get you out of my system in just a day. But those visits will turn to be your least favorite. With each visit, I’ll remind you and myself of my worth, of my belief in me, only stronger each time.
For, it is not you (who is a very tiny part of me) that should get to express me solely to the world.
Awaiting a goodbye.
Yours truly,
Human
Live a Little More 