What I want to give myself...

This is what I want to give myself - a day where the sun comes streaming in through the windows in just such a way that I can see dust glittering in the light. And as I wake, I breathe in the scent of fresh, clean sheets. In that moment I tell myself I’m alive. I feel my breath and swoon in awe towards my physical being and that something indescribable about me - that non-physical essence I sense in moments of stillness and joy.

I want to give myself the feeling that I’m worthy just because I am.

As I get out of that bed with the fresh clean sheets, and shuffle past the window with light streaming in, I want to know that there’s nothing I need to do to prove myself worthy as I reach for the coffee pot.

The coffee pot does not say to me, “Um, hey, before you pour any of those grinds in here, I’m gonna need you to show me your diploma, how much money you earned last year, and that new budget you claim to be working on.”

My bed doesn’t say, “Before you sleep here, my dear, please make sure your body is perfectly toned and fit.”

The sunlight doesn’t say, “Oh hey there Marisa, I know you’re just waking up but you didn’t respond to several emails last night so I’m gonna need you to do that in order to keep shining this dazzling light.”

The bed asks nothing of me. The coffee maker asks nothing of me. The streams of sunlight ask nothing of me. I do nothing. I prove nothing.

And yet I’m instantly good enough for them.

Why was I not instantly good enough for me??

Lately I’ve been loving and accepting myself as I am, but it’s not enough because under that is an even deeper desire. This...this is what I want to give myself: I want to give myself feelings of being valuable exactly as I am.

This piece was from a 10-minute free-write journaling exercise I did with Becky Karush. I highly recommend her gateless writing salons as the experience truly was therapeutic. I typed this up word for word from my messy scribbled notebook, only editing spelling errors and slight grammatical changes.