This Summer I Will Befriend Myself

Like most of us, I’ve spent too much time at war with myself. I’ve spent too much energy forcing myself to fit into spaces I just don’t anymore. I’ve made myself smaller out of the fear of being something more. I’ve spent years accepting everyone else’s truth but my own.

I’ve given forgiveness to the parts of people that I cannot even look at when it comes to my own body. I’ve given acceptance to the pieces of people that I shame on myself. I’ve given encouragement to the same exact situations that I brutally talk myself out of or down upon. And I’m done. I do not want to accept the way my brain has been molded as indefinite. I want more. I want more for myself.

This summer I will befriend myself. This summer I will practice the same patience with myself as I do with everyone I long to hold close to me. This summer I will not subject myself to environments that make me feel depleted and anxious, including my work space. This summer I will ask my anxiety questions, I will set boundaries with my depression. 

This summer I will get close to my body by fueling it with the substances it needs because God knows your mind cannot be well when your body is toxic.

This summer I will distance myself from everything that feels negative, I will let parts of myself go and say goodbye to the girl from the past while simultaneously reminding her that she was necessary and she’s still important. I will release all of my thoughts that put a barrier between me and my wellness and I will refuse to offer them to stay longer than a moment. I will spend time with people who lift me up and who encourage me to do better, people who don’t need much of me in order to love me.

This summer I will allow myself to rest a bit more than usual, to daydream of the life that I truly envision being my own until it appears before my eyes. I will be easy to myself and to my body, I will touch my skin with the full intent of loving it.

This summer I will use the time as well as the sun as the staple in the foundation in which I build a relationship with myself upon, the place where I yearn to come home to yet am excited to travel beyond all in one.