[I finally made it back to my iPad, so no more lowercase typing for now.]
One of my biggest fears in life has always been being selfish. When you’re younger, you are taught to share things with friends, because you don’t want to be greedy. We are told that “secrets don’t make friends,” and so it’s better to not be selfish in your endeavors. If you are having a rough go of it, don’t do too much to steal the spotlight, because everyone has issues.
Being selfish isn’t a “normal” thing for us to do if we want to be a good person.
Now that self-care is on the rise the way that it is, I begin to wonder where the line gets drawn between self-care, and selfishness. When is it too much?
I have decided that I have to be selfish right now, and that is okay. Putting yourself before others is sometimes the best thing you can do in order to ever be a self-sufficient person.
We finally called it quits — for good this time. It was my decision wholeheartedly, however I know he feels that way too. I’m choosing to be selfish.
For me, I don’t know much of self esteem or self worth away from him. We met in November, two months-post hospital stay. I was not in a good place, despite how much of an act I had presented. I think I cried close to every day that month, because I felt so abandoned and lost. I felt as if no one wanted to be there, because I wasn’t who I was before. I was far worse mentally than I had cared to admit to anyone.
When we first started getting to know each other, we were very honest with one another. I try not to sugarcoat what happened/happens in my life because it isn’t always a walk in the park. I told him from the get go that I was facing a lot through my hospital recovery, and this season of healing & processing anxiety and depression. I have learned that hiding things, or making them seem less worse than they are isn’t healthy for anyone. I liked him, he listened, he was comforting, he chose to see past my demons and noticed me for who I was and am.
Life isn’t this walk in the park, and neither is love — teenagers or not. I love him more than in the romantic aspect. I don’t love him just because he calls me pretty. I love him because he sees fractured parts of me as whole. I’ve never felt like I had to be someone different for him. I found out a lot of things about myself because of him. We learned to put aside our fears of not being enough, to embrace the idea that we were what we needed at these moments in our life.
I don’t know much about the art of loving another person, but I think that I understand enough to see that it is OK to step aside for the sake of the other person. I am young, but I am not naive. I’ve tried hard not to see life through this one lens perspective, because I see that it is unrealistic; and yet still, he always made life seem very rose-colored and warm. He does not realize the innocence he gave back to me, that I felt as if I had lost throughout the journey of dealing with my depression.
I left, not because of him, but because of myself. A lot of it feels like self-sabotage, because it has been very difficult being happy just to be happy. I feel undeserving of this pain, and yet I also feel undeserving of the joy that comes in the morning. I had finally reached a point where things were going well for us, but I could not bring myself to see past my own feelings of fear and anxiousness that maybe something was wrong or something could be wrong. I left, but partly because I feel like a sucky person — I feel inadequate to be there for him. I feel inadequate to be someone he is supposed to love.
I am only 17, and he is only 18, so I think it is safe to say that we are a tad bit immature emotionally. It isn’t that I feel like we are unfit to have mature feelings, but rather that we are both handling heavy things that are hard to do alone, more or less carrying it for the other. When we face these trials with someone else in the passenger seat, it is easier to rely on them to be your savior because they have mended these temporary pains. They are a band-aid when what we need are stitches.
Psalm 46:1 says: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”
I am finding Him to be my refuge, because the right thing and the hardest thing are often the same thing.
We are taught in all four Gospels, and in Paul’s letters to the churches that we are to die to self in order to willfully follow Christ. The truth of the matter is, you can die to self, while making choices that are better for you, because when you are in Christ and being led by the Holy Spirit, these things are not your choices — they are Christ’s.
We can and must die to self, but this does not mean that we should choose to neglect ourselves and the reality that we can and must take care of ourselves. If I’m being honest, I don’t know much about being emotionally dependent for myself and not for him. I don’t have that solid foundation built, even if it is available. I can’t be alone comfortably with Christ, because I can’t bring myself to be alone in a self-care manner. Self-care centered in Christ, and self-care led by the Holy Spirit is never selfish. It is okay to do things for you and you only, but never be so selfish that you lose sight of the true Image in which we were created. [I am speaking to myself here, too.]
When we make the effort to be there for ourselves, it becomes hard to understand why things happen the way they do. I have probably cried more over him than I have any other guy, because he is genuinely the first boy to ever show me what it is like to be loved and loved genuinely. I made the choice to leave with each of us in mind, because I want him to be better for himself and himself only — not because it is expected of me. Sometimes we withhold ourselves from true potential because we’re worried that it won’t fit the other’s agenda, when the truth is: it probably won’t.
There is a balance between being there for someone and being there for someone because it is comfortable. In these moments of selflessness, we can’t be so quick to put ourselves on the back burner. I hate the saying “you can’t love someone until you love yourself,” but it really rings true in situations where neither of you can be fulfilled healthily by the other. Christ calls us to be there for the sick and broken. Let us be honest with ourselves, and admit those times when we're sick and broken.
I love him, very much, for many different reasons. But, people are made for seasons of our lives. I told him yesterday that I felt so blinded by the fact I wanted him, that maybe I didn’t need him anymore. This doesn’t mean he is unworthy of my love and affection toward him, but I need Emma for Emma and not Emma for someone else.
Love is hard and life is not the walk in the park we all often hope it will be. I will continue to fight and love, often from a distance. If God took the time to seal the grass that will be thrown into the furnace tomorrow, He will carry me through the toughest days.
One of our favorite songs says: “You might be, Far from me now, But you will be, Part of me I know”
-Em