False Pretenses

“You know who you are.
You are the sum of all that has happened.
So don’t let doubters drag you down.”

Mutual respect and friendship isn’t always genuine. It’s a hard lesson I’ve learned time and time again.

Sometimes all it takes is one look. A split second, and it’s all over. You see it. That flash of disgust flickering across their face. That’s when you know, it was all a lie. You wait, hoping it was wrong. That it was a trick of light.

But it didn’t take long to realize the truth, did it? “I was nothing to you,” you think. It took some processing to accept it, but if you’re being honest with yourself, that instant of distaste was enough to lose all respect for them.

I’m here to tell you that they weren’t worth it. Don’t mourn them, because they don’t deserve it. You know who you are. You are the sum of all that has happened to you, and you have come out the other side intact. Or you’re on your way. So no matter what they think of you, or if they used you, took advantage, it doesn’t matter.

Shake it off, and make a friend out of the rest of your pain. Hug it. Build your world around it and the people you know are family, whether they’re blood or not. Even if you lock yourself away from the rest of the world. Make beauty from your pain, and show the world — not just them — that you can overcome anything. And you have. You’ve won. They didn’t take that piece of you that still shone in the darkness. You bloomed beneath the moonlight, and they had no part of it.

That’s when you know, even though it’ll take time, you are worth it. And they aren’t.

© Sarah Doughty
2016