Personal
Not loving myself enough is exhausting. It's not that I don't. Just not enough. Not enough to take care of myself even when I'm having a bad day. Not enough to feel secure that who I am and what I do are two different things, that it doesn't matter how good I am at doing x thing because I deserve to be loved (by myself) anyway. No matter what. And I haven't really ever screwed up yet... Not enough not to feel threatened, in an absurd, unvoiced way, when other people seem to be happier or to have their lives more together than I do(even when it just looks that way). Not enough not to have to fight myself for all the times I'm lazy, even though there's nothing more normal. Not enough to make time to write, and screw being good at it. Not enough, to meet with friends often and have a good time, with no thoughts of comparison. Not enough, because consciously, deliberately doing things that make me happy, or accepting them as what they are, is something I have to work on everyday. Not enough, because I keep second guessing every choice I have made, choices that I made consciously and which give at least as much as they take. Because I don't let myself off the hook for having made those choices, because I have a whole life ahead of me to make thousands more, and nothing is over yet. I see these thoughts I have, and how they wear me down, and I'm working on it. But it's exhausting.