You Are Not Perfect, But You Are All Of These Things

I have something to tell you.

You are smarter than you know. Things don’t fall into your mind or into your lap. You have to reread, rethink, and ask quite a few questions on the way. You’re the person who asks questions. The person who asks questions is fearless in the pursuit of what they want.

You’re a good girlfriend. Possibly better than what he deserves. He has a good heart, you think, but if he doesn’t start to show you in words and deeds just how important you are to his world, then he is not the one.

You are quite good at loving others, better than you know, in fact. You may think the way you see the world and the way you love, with your lack of saying the actual four-letter word, may be dark. It may be fragmented, imperfect, all over the place, or even completely over the top. Maybe you are the friend who buys the gold number balloons for your friends’ birthdays. Conversely, maybe you are the friend who doesn’t say much but never lets those who are important down. I don’t know what love is, but I know that if you think you feel it in your heart, you’re probably good at it.

You are a boisterous laugh (with the occasional snort) that the world needs. There is so much fucking death and sadness on the news and all around us. The miserable people on the train in the morning could be picked up by your muffled giggling at your friend or book. Laughter is mysterious in all of its healing.

You are your father’s compassion for the homeless and those who are down on their luck. You are your sister’s impeccable delivery of sarcasm. You are the remembrance of the fact that most of us are trying our best.

Now let me tell you what you are not.

You are not your father’s decision to leave your mother when she became pregnant with you.
You are not a parent’s drug addiction.

You are not someone who deserves to be yelled at. You are not the young man or the young woman who waits for someone to decide that they might love you too. You are not a person who begs for love, because such an idea should cease to exist. If you love, which you do, you should receive it in return. You are not a kid anymore.

You are not the embarrassment or regret of a situation where the person you love did not love you back. That is not who you are. That is not where it begins and ends for you.

You are not perfect. But you are someone who fights. You are fighting for the family you love, the future you want, and the right to make a myriad of more (albeit enjoyable) mistakes.

I know that you are a world of things that I don’t see. In that world of characteristics, you probably don’t love every part of yourself. Just know this: You know what you want and what you deserve. You just have to fight for your version of the fairytale.