The Mirror I Mistook for Love

For a long time, I believed being chosen was proof that I mattered.
A confirmation of my value.
A delusional notion, measuring myself by being picked, wanted, validated.

I mistook someone else’s yes for my own worth.
I thought being chosen meant that I was enough.
And yet, there was a pattern:
rejection,
silence,
abandonment.

When I wasn’t chosen, I was left alone with myself.
Stripped of validation.
Forced to define my own value.
I had to meet myself without the mirror of approval and decide who I was without it.

I stood in the quiet of my interior and asked the most deafening question:
Who am I when no one is choosing me but me?
It was then I realized
I was no option,
No possibility …
but a woman who would become her own choice.

Without external approval, I began discovering my worth on my own terms.
I am SO IN LOVE with those terms.