To The Hopeful Beauties Who Feel They Don’t Belong Anywhere

You call it a mid-life crisis. But you’re only 20. You call it a mere season, but the nagging feeling has been there for seasons. Everywhere you turn, you feel unwanted, replaceable.

From birth, you were unwanted. Or at least your mum’s stories made you feel that way. They made you feel like a liability, like an unwanted gift. As life goes on, you fought to achieve something, you strived and you tried your very best, all in hopes that someday, someone will recognize you for you. That someone will want you for you. But no one does. No one has truly wanted you.

When you’re a little too loud, they tell you to keep to yourself. And when you keep to yourself, they look past you. No one knows who you are, and it seems like no one cares.

On the surface, life goes on. You smile and you laugh, a little too hard at times. You preach about how life is worth living, how grateful you are and how happy one should be, when deep down, you constantly attempt to bury the voices of “you are not good enough” and “you don’t belong here”.

You’ve come to accept the fact that people always leave, that nothing good ever stays. You joke about your own commitment issues when the truth is, you are afraid that he would be settling for less. And in time, you stop being that girl who is supposed to belong in his life. So you pick the cowardly way out, you stop giving you heart away. You stop allowing yourself to love. You stop loving.

You stop taking chances. You stop taking chances on friends, on love, and on family. When a door opens, you step in, but not before you are sure that there’s a way out. You try to give your all, but you hold back the real you because you know that the dark parts don’t belong there. They don’t deserve to carry the burden of loving your scars and wounds. So you keep it cool, pretend you are okay, that you belong and you fake it till you move on. Move on to somewhere else, hopefully, right before they tell you that they never wanted you there anyways.

Like a backpack traveler, you never settled down because settling down means finding a place where you belong. And after not belonging for so long, you forgot what it feels like to belong.

But keep on trying to believe my love, keep on fighting to believe that where you are, is where God wants you to be. Don’t give in to the voices. Keep believing that regardless of what they say, you belong there. You were placed there. Divine intervention placed you there. It does not matter if you were their first, second or third choice. Or even if you were never their choice. It does not matter if you were wanted or not. God wanted you there and you were there for a reason. Sometimes to save someone, sometimes to let someone save you. Maybe it is hard to feel settled, confident and assured that where you are is where you are supposed to be. But try, my darling. Try to believe in you a little more. Because despite the lying circumstances, you are wanted. You are loved. And you belong.