Death you are a b*tch.

You leave your sting wherever you go.

You are mindless and hurtful and we are never ready for your arrival no matter how long we have expected you to show up.

You work your magic when we least expect it. And we are silenced by the grip you hold on us.

You have left a trail of broken hearts in your wake…I should’ve known you would have the same effect on me.

You are foreign and yet familiar….and THAT I hate.

You changed my story and for that I will never let you live it down.

There are a long list of October 22nd’s in my life…..

Jan 26th….Nov 2….March 28th….Feb 21st…..the list is longer than I care to note.

I hate you.

And yet there have been moments in my history that I have longed for you.

You have taken too many, too soon…it is always too soon.

You taunt and deceive. You have a way of making us feel invincible to your power until the moments where you show up without notice and we are forcefully shaken back to a reality that says the opposite.

But hear this-

I am no longer making room for you to taint my day to day. You no longer get to cast the shadow from my past on the moments of my presence.

Dark days are now being brought to light.

I will not throw away the memories of those you have taken with the wreck-less abandon in which you choose to operate.

Although I cannot forget, I make a deliberate choice to remember-

…the goodness in which I have been shown, the faithfulness I have clung to,  and the hope that I hold closer than the memories you try and haunt me with.

To death I say:

You and I will meet again. This is a fact that doesn’t stir up fear. But I will not make room for you before it’s time. I will not hold back from loving and giving because I fear forming bonds that you may inevitably break.

Hear this: You will be defeated, well before you defeat me.

Before you read any further, consider this a disclaimer:

If you do not appreciate vulnerability, if you are unable to read someone talking frankly about their struggles then please do you (and me) a favor and go back to trolling Facebook. If you haven’t been scared off… carry on but no one gets a gold star for making it through to the end of this blog (I mean if you wanted to get me a gold star you can, being vulnerable is not my strong suit). 

As I write this I am already deeply regretting my decision to do so but I’m hoping by the end of this it will accomplish something in me that has been a long time coming. I’m most definitely in over my head on this one (insert terrified emoji face here).

Here’s my confession:

I have been ruled and ravaged by this one thing for as long as I can remember. It has stolen from me opportunity, and relationships, the ability to dream, and many a night of sleep. It has wreaked havoc on me…mind, soul, and body.

What is this deep dark secret I possess.

Ready for it?

I am insecure. Deeply and irrefutably insecure.

I have created a false illusion of confidence and security, all the while crumbling on the inside with every comparison I force myself to try and live up to. Comparison….it’s such an ugly word, but it is a language I speak fluently.

I feel like my battle with insecurity is not the final straw in my personal development but it’s a darn big one, that’s for sure.

While my insecurity starts with my physicality, it doesn’t stop there.

The damage that others have done to me pales in comparison to the harm I have done to myself…physically and mentally. Yes, I am overweight this comes to me as no surprise. I struggled my whole life. The cause of my weight comes from the security that I unconsciously thought it provided me. If I looked unappealing to men, they could not hurt me again, neither could anyone else for that matter. I will use my appearance as a weapon before you can. But I don’t want to keep people away anymore, or better the one person that may come into my life on purpose to love me past the barriers I have built.

It has been the comedy of my life to consider myself, “The safe girl.” Meaning, that I am not a threat to any chick if I get close to her guy. Meaning that dudes can be friends with me and know that I won’t make it weird. That I will not use manipulation or my body to get what I want from them in any given moment. Safe… as in never an option.

And while there is safety in being “safe” there is also a broken and wounded woman who has never allowed herself to live beyond that well-earned label.

I have learned to manipulate circumstances and scenarios with my humor and quick wit as to keep up the facade that I am a confident woman…hear me roar.

But I don’t just pick a part my appearance, I judge my every action. Have I loved hard enough, have I served well enough, did I give big enough? This cycle of living has left me depleted and still no closer to abiding in the security that I desperately crave. My greatest fear in life is being alone but I let no one in because if they get too close the facade will crumble. What irony, right?

My writing has served as a mirror for me, one that is easier for me to look in at the moment then the one hanging on my bedroom wall.

I do not like what I see…but I will. Not when I’m smaller, or smarter, or fit some other type of mold I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to fit in to.

Letting people get close has always been scary to me, probably the reason that I have been unable to finish Donald Miller’s book “Scary Close” for the better part of a year.

 

While I want to be noticed, I am terrified of being seen. Truly seen, which leads to being known, which means that people have the choice not to choose you.

And that is the very thing I want, someone to choose me, yet I have not made that same decision…to choose ME.

I won’t be for everyone but I will be for someone.

I’m afraid of not being enough,and yet of being too much.

My love is fierce and wild and good. I am…good (that was harder to write than I imagined).

I am capable of letting people in, like really in. Into the heart spaces and hard places.

Yes, you are safe with me but I warn you I am dangerous because I know I can survive.

While I feel like a before in a world full of afters, I know my story is still being written, but not without my permission.

This is my life and I belong here.

This is me fighting to be free. Making the jump. Going first because, as my best friend Elisabeth Willard says (maybe quoting Jon Acuff), “Going first gives others the gift of going second.”

Here’s to living [in]security but not as slaves to insecurity.