A Self-love Story

Chapter 6

In order to love who you are, you can't hate the experiences that shaped you.

Dear Diary,

Today I was in a much better mood than yesterday. I went to work, dressed up in my uniform as usual. And again, as usual, the darkness encompassing the gallery calmed me. Why do moths get so attracted to light when darkness is so much better? That random thought popped into my mind and yes I'm writing it in the diary because, why not? Nobody else is going to read this anyway.

I walked to my boss and asked him for my newest position. He pointed to a part of the gallery that looks more lit than the other parts and I walked over. I tried to paint a small smile on my face to make sure that people don't get scared of me. I'm self-aware enough to know that my scars make me look fairly intimidating. Just one more reason to hate them. A sudden influx of emotions slam into me. Sorrow. Loneliness. Self-hate. Inadequacy. I try my best to smother them all and instead steer my mind to a simpler yet infinitely more complex topic. The art.

The new place that I'd been given spotlighted a dull coloured painting, made entirely of shades of grey. The painting was completely abstract and that's what made me like it more. Abstract paintings give the audience an opportunity to see what they want in the painting. It gives them the freedom to find whatever meaning they want to, the meaning that they need to find. It can even be therapeutic for some. This painting, in my opinion, expresses life. Life isn't black and white, good and bad. It is full of greys, lighter and darker ones. Even when you're at your happiest there will be some tiny problem that you have overseen. Then, my inner voice combated that saying, even when you're at your darkest, there will be some light you have overseen. Light. Happiness. What was there to be happy about in my life? I was all alone and I couldn't even remember the last time I had genuinely smiled, let alone been happy. You can be happy about being alive. Life is a gift given to all of us and everyone spends their life trying to find happiness, so why can't you? My inner voice says, almost shouting at me.

Because I don't know where to find it. I spent my whole life being happy because of all the wonderful people in my life, so now in their absence, I don't know where to go looking for happiness. And I am afraid. I am afraid that even if I found happiness it would be snatched away like before. And I don't know if I could take that happening again. I don't want to shatter myself any more than I already am. I don't want to become so broken that I'd be utterly unfixable. Did that mean, I thought I was fixable now? I tried to figure out the answer to that question when a soft voice broke me out of my thoughts. I quelled the irritation at being interrupted and turned around to see a young girl looking up at me, with tear-rimmed eyes.

"I can't find my Papa," she said and I knelt before her, thinking, I can't find mine either. The warm compassionate man I called my father is gone and now all I am left with is the cold unwelcoming alien who can barely look at me.

"I'll help you find him. What's your name?" I asked her, my voice betraying a softness I didn't know I possessed anymore.

"Alisa. My mommy said that it means happy, so don't be sad," the girl, Alisa told me, her brown eyes wide and innocent and gently clutching my hand. How could a young girl like her tell that I was unhappy? Was my acting really that bad? Or maybe children could see the truth a lot better than everyone else?

"Okay," I said, plastering a wider fake smile on my face which seemed to satisfy her. Little did she know that I was the furthest thing from happy right now. All I was doing was burying my troubles underneath a false mask of nonchalance. I was escaping from my demons instead of facing them and prolonging the pain that they'll bring me because I was too afraid. I was a coward.

I couldn't sleep that night because the thoughts in my head were too loud. You're a coward. You're weak. You're useless. You're too afraid of your feelings. I wanted to stop the thoughts pounding against my head like a sledgehammer and piercing my heart like a deathly sharp blade. So, I got up and decided almost in spite. Fine, I won't hide from my feelings. I won't stop myself from feeling. I won't stop caring, because how can I fix a problem if I can't even accept that it's there. Maybe I need to break once before finally putting myself back together. A quote I once read made me smile. It's okay to be a glow-stick. Sometimes we need to break before we shine. Then I dug up every buried feeling.

In that crazy moment, I let myself experience every feeling I ever buried. Fear. Loneliness. Inadequacy. Betrayal. Pain. Anger. Disappointment. And most of all sorrow. I let it wash over me like a flood, overtaking my every thought, letting it run rampage through each cell of my body. I let it bring tears to my eyes, the salty drops flowing endlessly down my cheeks, a waterfall of grief. I clutched my head as excruciating pain seemed to explode inside me and numerous thoughts rushed at me.

Was Charlotte even a real friend if she walked away from me just to protect herself? Did Theo only ever date me for my looks? How can my father even call himself my father if he can't take care of me at my weakest? When will Kieran ever remember that he has a sister that he loves, or loved? And most of all, how can my mother just leave me like that? Mom dying is something I can never get over. She was, is and will forever be irreplaceable. I always went to her whenever I was feeling down. Now she's not here anymore and she's the reason I can't find myself anymore. How dare death steal her away from me! Now I have nobody that loves me. And that is all your fault, my inner voice says. How? Because you aren't letting the one person who should love you, love you. Who? You. But, how can I love myself when the people that loved me most, can't even love me any more? How you love yourself is how you teach others to love you, my inner voice responded.

That thought made me freeze for a moment. If that is indeed true, how can I start to love myself? The answer came to me easily. Acceptance. I walked to the washroom and rinsed the makeup off my face. I washed off every last remnant of concealer, revealing my scars completely. I stared at myself in the mirror. All I could see in the reflection was vulnerability. The girl staring back at me had puffy eyes, red from crying and blotchy cheeks. Her sad gaze seemed to bore into me and I stared at my scars for a long long time. I traced each one of them with my finger and tried to look at them as an experience. An experience that changed my life completely, but also showed me the truth. It showed me that the people in my life who claimed to have loved me didn't love me and maybe that was because I didn't love myself entirely either. I was so caught up in everything and everyone around me that I didn't have time to look within. The experience was painful, but it showed me that the best kind of love is self-love because it's the kind of love that initiates every other kind of love.

My scars are a part of me. They are my battle scars. They may look ugly, but they show that I have endured a battle and ultimately won. I'll probably never become the person that I was before, the happy, carefree, naive girl, but maybe, just maybe, that's not such a bad thing. I'm so much stronger now, even if I feel constantly feel weak and vulnerable because it is a sign of courage to let the fear in. The gruelling experience of the past few years has taught me one thing. Life isn't meant to be easy. You are meant to be strong enough and brave enough to live through it.

We enter this world alone and we leave it that way too. So there's nothing wrong with being alone. It doesn't make you a bad person, just independent. And whoever isn't in my life anymore, I will mourn them no more, because if they didn't stay by my side when I needed them, then I never did need them at all. And maybe they were never meant to be in my life. Maybe them leaving me was all for a reason, to teach me this lesson and make me a stronger person. And maybe one day I'll be able to look at my past with a smile instead of tears.

Yours,
Tia.