When The Girl You Love Doesn’t Love Herself

There will be days when our body aches, moments when we’re unsure if we can get out of bed, and days when we just don’t want to. Don’t try and convince us to be a big girl and face the world, it’ll just aggravate us more. Instead, curl into bed with us, lie there, and hold us; turn on your laptop – do your work, watch Netflix, online shop, do virtually anything. All we ask is that you be there.

A little time in, we will probably tell you to leave. We’ll say that we don’t need you, claiming that we’re a big girl who can face this all alone. Don’t leave. We know it’ll be hard hearing the girl you love lie helplessly as she tells you to go. We know it’ll be tough staying when everything in you is telling you that you need a break. But, please stay. It’s in moments like this that we need you the most. And as we see ourselves needing you, that’ll scare us, and so we will push you away.

But stay.

We need the touch of your arms, wrapped around us, to give us the courage to get up and face the world.

There will be moments when we’re smiling – laughing with the biggest little kid smile, and you’ll assume we’re whole. You’ll assume you’ve cured us, and maybe, temporarily, you have. But, just like that, a light will switch, and we’ll go from being happy to sad in less than a minute. We’ll get this dazed-out look and say we need to leave, and you won’t see or hear from us for a couple of days. Know it’s not your fault. There’s nothing you could’ve said or done differently. It just got too, much and we needed a few days to process everything. We needed to prove to ourselves that we can do us for us and that we’ll be fine once you leave – after all, people always leave, right? And once you leave, we need to make sure we’ll be fine. So, we’ll leave and do a couple days of doing just us. But, we’ll come back. I promise, we always do.

There will be moments when you see us curled on the floor crying. Don’t ask us what’s wrong. If we wanted to talk, we would. Instead, kiss our foreheads. Then take our hand and lead us somewhere else. Take us to the tv room and let us fall into your arms – sniffy and all – while we block out the world with the sounds from the tv, even if it is just temporary.

We’ll be hard to love. We know we will. But, we’ll be worth it. We’ll love you with all our heart and there will be moments when you can tell. You’ll see it in us smiling, laughing, and telling you how much we care. You’ll see it in the sincerity in our eyes as we say – baby, I love you. You’ll see it in us acting like a little kid. And in the way we introduce you as mine to all our friends. You’ll see it in all the little things.

So, don’t give up on us. Please? Because if you’re persistent enough to succeed – I promise we’ll be worth it. And eventually all that love you poured into us will seep through, and you’ll slowly fill in all those empty holes. Through your love, we’ll learn to love ourselves and one day we’ll be whole. We won’t be the girl that’s always only half there. We’ll finally be whole. Oh, and all yours.