Today, I looked in the bathroom mirror after my shower. I’ve looked at her before. I’ve looked at her everyday. But today was different. I noticed more of her. I looked beyond the dark circles around her eyes, the thinning hair, the disappearing eyebrows and eyelashes, the now permanent creases on her face from 38 years of living and 5 months of chemotherapy. She is beautiful – and I told her so today. She is amazing and full of life and possibility. She has learned a lot but has more to yet learn. She doesn’t need to hide anymore. She doesn’t need to wear a mask over who she is.
She deserves to be healthy. She deserves to take care of herself and put herself first. She deserves someone to love her for who she is and not who she was. She deserves to be heard and accepted of her opinions. She deserves to have everything life has to offer. She deserves to love herself and to be loved.
She is no longer that little girl missing her mommy. She is no longer that young teen taking physical and verbal abuse from young boys because of how she looks. She is no longer that young woman who doesn't know what love feels like because true love wasn't received while still young. She is letting go of all the hurt, sorrow, disappointment and pain that has been carried around for 38 years.
Today feels like spring...the perfect time to plant new seeds in my mind and see how they grow - to see how “she” grows. It is the perfect day to tell everyone that you love them but most importantly to tell yourself that you love YOU.
“Love is the highest form of acceptance, and judgment is the hard rejection of that acceptance.” – from the book Unattended Sorrow by Steven Levine
Part of my favorite Psalm (139)
ReplyDeleteYou made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.
How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered! I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand!
And when I wake up, you are still with me!