Sarah Nyhan

You want to be there, but you can’t. For your own sanity. For your heart. For your health. For your ability to survive.

If you’re ever going to have a chance to thrive. To be able to ever obtain any enjoyment of and from this life.

The time you’ve been given like everyone else. You deserve happiness as much as anyone else.

Just because they won’t let themselves have it doesn’t mean you have to join them. Just to feel less alone. Just to not leave people you want in your life behind.

That’s fucking sad. That you can’t make people come along. That they will choose to stay behind.

At least for now. Maybe you have to show them how to do it. That it’s possible.

Yet without any guarantees.

I hate when you force me to choose myself over you. I hate being put in that position. There is no win to celebrate. No victory in moving forward without you.

But I have to. I can no longer kill myself for everyone else. For anyone else. That shit is unbearable.

Because at the end of the day you’ll still leave me even if I give you the world. Because you already abandoned yourself.

I can’t expect you to show up for me, even in the simplest of ways, if you don’t show up for yourself.

They said to watch how a man treats his mother. Because that’s how he’ll treat you. But the same applies to everyone: they can’t treat you better than they treat themselves. Long-term.

You want me to join you. You want me to validate how you give up. You don’t want me to challenge that shit.

But I refuse to accept that is all you deserve, that is all you’re due. Nope.

Follow my lead if you will. If you dare.

But I can’t stop living anymore in order to wait for you. I did that my whole life. I am so far and too far behind to wait for you to decide to value yourself before I start living again.

I did that for too long with all the wrong people. People who didn’t wait up for me in return. People who didn’t show up for me when I truly needed it.

So I have to finally show up for myself even if nobody else chooses me. As unfair and painful as that can be to face.

I am no longer waiting for permission to be happy. I am no longer waiting to be given the basics of a life worth living. I am rediscovering the power we’ve all been given to create lives worth living for. Lives worth showing up for. Eventually.

At least I won’t continue to subject myself to the same endless shit. And wonder why I feel so bad, why I never feel better.

It’s completely understandable. I wasn’t taught to expect anything more. But that doesn’t mean I have to continue perpetuating some shame story like a sick inheritance passed down from generation to generation.

I am finally choosing differently. In measurable ways this time. As absolutely fucking hard as it is to do the work. Without proof that risking it all, at least with you, will ever pay off.

But I can’t keep doing the same ‘ol, same ‘ol and expect different results. Somethings got to give. And unfortunately I guess it’s this.

You have to believe better is possible. In order to find the strength to push yourself forward in the face of so much pain. So much difficulty. So much loss.

You have to trust that there is a Creator who Loves them as much as They Love you. That my attempts to rescue those I don’t want to be without pale in comparison to God’s abilities to truly give them the same freedoms I want them so desperately to embrace.

That I can truly relax if I deep-down believe God Loves them more than I ever could. That we all are truly safe.

Do I really trust in a good God that doesn’t toy with my heart?

Or does it always depend on me?

I choose hope. I choose Jesus.

I choose my identity as a child of a very good God. The Father our hearts were not spoiled to expect.

It’s okay to name things as they really are. If I have reason to believe the story doesn’t stop there. That the narrative might only just be beginning.

For a God whose mercies are new every morning. That the world will still keep spinning if I let Him handle it all.

Me and my heart included.

We have to find the courage to see things as they are. Not just as we wish them to be.

And trust that being able to do so means we’re finally strong enough. Even if we don’t feel like it. Even if it’s intensely painful.

That the time is now.

Not for punishment. Or else do you still believe in the lie of that kind of deity?

Not me. I finally trust. I finally have reason to believe. Reason for real hope. Experiential data for true faith.

Not delusion. Not limerence. As necessary as those were to my survival.

I forgive myself. I even forgive God.

I am finally leaning in. When I’m able. As I’m able. Giving myself grace.

Confident that there is a lot more going on than I am able to hold in my comparatively tiny brain.

This is the kind of humility that isn’t dehumanizing. Where I don’t need to even have to figure out how to save myself. So I can let God save everyone else. And their view of Trinity.

So that…

We can hopefully rejoice and celebrate all together eventually.

I won’t ever stop hoping I get to see it in this lifetime. But I am confident we’ll all eventually see it either way in whatever lifetimes come after this one.

Many might call it excessively indulgent to ask for more than what people expect me to settle for. But I don’t see any other way out of our current shit.

I am no longer operating in shame. Or despondency.

I choose better before I feel like it.

And if you think I’m so wrong in doing so then please explain otherwise. With proof.