The journey of finding yourself is not
all that social media has it cracked up to be.
It’s not gallivanting around Europe
in a pair of Toms
taking photos in mosques and on mountains
with beautiful people
seeing beautiful things
eating beautiful food.
It’s a cycle of
I hate myself, I love myself
I hate myself for loving myself
and I love myself just to hate something else.
It’s searching in the bottom of a bottle
of tequila for the answers to an aching soul
that yearns for more than a floral centerpiece
and a 9-5.
Those lonely nights when you can’t stand yourself
another minute so you peruse
the home décor isle of Wal-Mart
at 3 a.m. dreaming of what could be
what should be.
Losing yourself makes you feel so small
like your insides might cave in on themselves
and your entire being will be erased
in an instant because you couldn’t
raise your voice above the crowd.
Finding yourself is big.
It makes you feel like you could engulf
an entire room with your laugh
or crush mountains with your sorrow
or create universes with your love
because you can and you will.
Finding yourself is falling in love with a dozen people
because they remind you what you are capable of
and falling in love with yourself because of what you are capable of.
I am capable of oceans of emotions
and of making others feel those emotions
and of detaching myself from whatever doesn’t
make me feel the enormous weight of the
galaxies inside myself.
I have found myself in the places I do not belong
and in the places I want to be,
where I see myself going,
and in the power of not underestimating the sheer force
of my existence.
