It’s like the more I like myself, the less people do. I mean, I’m finally getting comfortable with loving my skin without baring it all and letting go of all of my innocence. I promise that I never wanted to be that girl. Searching for love in all the wrong places, seeking adoration from random faces, holding on to temporary satisfaction and all of the time that I wasted. I was wasted. Drunken off people’s love that was jaded.
But I’m changing, and I won’t conform. At least not again.
I wonder how many people did I let in that I should’ve locked out? How many times did I give myself away thinking that someone would stay? I traveled miles on a hunt thinking that there was something out in the world that I was missing, that I would never get if I stayed where I was—or who I was. Because so many before, said she wasn’t good enough.
“You’re so sweet...but”. “Wow, you’re so smart...but”. “Girl, I wish I had your heart...but”. But, she wasn’t good enough. I started to feel like there was no way that I could get to where I wanted to be if I kept what had made me, in essence— me.
Good girls don’t win. Life ain’t fair. You have to play the game, if you want to get there.
So there I was. Unrecognizable! Open for the world to see. I got all of the praise, and the love and the fame, but at the end of the day all of that faded away. And every day started to begin and end the same, me waking up to prepare myself to be someone that I wasn’t. Laughing at jokes that weren’t funny. Spending my last dime on anything that would enhance me, so that I could be somebody worth romancing. Playing dumb, because who would like a book worm?
A girl that stayed up late at night to find poetry in the world. Someone who obsessed with the stars and the moon, not because of some constellations but because that’s where she thought that her dreams would lie. A person that was quick to forgive and find a friend within anyone. Someone who had aspirations of changing the world instead of falling victim to it. And that was just it, I loved everything that had made me, in the essence—me.
It took a while, but I realized that people’s “likes” could never keep me warm at night. Their adoration would never wipe away my tears or help silence my fears. Their temporary presence was there to take and not to give and yes, I finally realized that this was no way to live. Yes it may be a slow and steady race until the end, but I know I’ll still win being my genuine self, with my genuine love and my genuine friends. So if I attracted you back when, I hate to admit that it wasn’t real. I hate that it went on for so long, but now...no, I won’t conform.
At least not again...
-A Liberated Me
