You Are Never Just Taking Up Space
It's been a hot minute. I feel like I haven't had time to myself to think, let alone write. My life has been consumed with my son, work, and school. Sometimes I get to sit and drink coffee with a dear friend and schoolmate, and sometimes I just sit at my desk and cry. Tonight is not one of those nights.
Tonight I'm here to remind you that you are never just taking up space.
You know that little shitbag voice in your head that tells you that you're not good enough, or that you've fucked things up? Perhaps yours is a little more passive and likes to remind you of your past transgressions. Whatever it says to you, remember it's all a damn lie.
You deserve to take up the space you take up. Whatever space, however much it may be. IT. IS. YOURS. TO. TAKE. UP. I know I need to eat my own words and take them to heart, and I know how damn challenging it is to overcome the lies that your mind tells you.
You deserve space. You deserve the air you breathe. You deserve time. You deserve peace. You deserve love.
There's also a list of dirty items you don't deserve. You don't deserve others shitty behaviors. You don't deserve their excuses why, and their false apologies. You don't deserve the lies, and mistreatment, and there's absofuckinglutely no way you deserve the narcissistic rhetoric that you've been fed. Fuck that.
It's been a consistent message of mine, at least to myself. You know that thing about how habits are formed? Well, it takes a long fucking time to learn self love. At first, you tell yourself you're not worth it, because you've believed the lies you've been told for far too long. As I've always said, when you're told you're a piece of shit for years, you start believing it. But the fun thing about shit is that it breaks down and decomposes. It starts feeding into life; breathing new power to growth. It gives way to the beauty of life. To what you were always meant to be; lying dormant just beneath the shit surface. Just a little break in the surface tension, a smidge of self worth, albeit falsified or true, becomes the permeable barrier that breaks. When it goes, it goes. She breaks all the fuck the way open. Growth, beauty, pain, and glory are born. But it all takes time.
I was recently asked why aren't there any pics of me other than obvious selfies. This stung for a moment. The truth was that I didn't have someone to take those pics for me. The ex fuckboyfriend was too self consumed to try to take pics of me, nor did he want to. To be honest, I didn't want them either. I was in that "I'm a piece of shit" phase. I looked and felt like shit. I started believing I was shit again. It's not a good place to be, and you don't need to tell me this twice. I wasn't taking care of myself because I thought I deserved what I was living with. Today though, today was the moment I needed to put it into perspective.
While at work and perhaps having an impromptu 'Africa' (yes, by Toto) sing along, my boss popped back into the office. Mid hairwhip, she laughed and I stopped and smiled. She just looked at me and said, "You've come so far from who you were last year at this time." I smiled back, not thinking I just replied, "yeah, I think the old Kali is back." But it was more than that. You know those looks that someone gives you when they look into your soul? She did that. She saw, she knew. We both laughed, and she said, "yeah, it's not that." And she was right. I didn't go back to what I was. I became what I was meant to be. I have never been the person I am today, and as I continue to grow, and to love myself, I realize what I deserve and what I don't deserve.
Maybe I'll ask you to take a picture of me. Please.
I haven't heard this song in a hot minute. It reminds me of teenage angst, love, frustration and beauty.
It still kicks to this day.
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