Here is your notice.

First I want to start off by saying that the opinions, feelings and truths in this blog are mine.  I feel them, I experienced them and I lived them.  I am in no way saying that I was perfect, but in order for me to let the little girl inside of me heal, I have to release what is  holding her inside.

To Whom It May Concern:

Your words, thoughts and ideas have lived inside my brain for too long.  I was not being my true self, because I was trying to live up to ideals that I now realize I will never meet.  I remember some things very vividly, as if they happened only yesterday.  Some things are fleeting glimpses and other are triggered by smells, sounds, or movies.  I am giving you notice to vacate.

To the voice that tells me: "You are too fat, ugly and stupid for anybody to ever love you."  First that is hurtful.  Second it is not true.  I may be and have been fat, but I have never been ugly or stupid.  I am working on the fat part right now so the point is now invalid.  I find it sad that for years I believed you.  I truly did not feel worthy of anyone's love, so I pushed people away who cared for me to prove you right.

To the voice that tells me: "They don't make clothes big enough to fit you."  Well that is just untrue.  They do.  I have never shown up any place without being dressed.  It hurts that in order to make yourself  feel better, you had to hurt me.

To the voice that makes me believe that nobody will like me for who I am.  That is a lie.  I have several people in my life who like and dare I say love me for exactly who I am.  They are not concerned with whose I am.  They could care less who my parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles are.  They like and love me just for me.  For ME!  I think this is one reason why even to this day, if someone pays me a compliment I don't believe them.  Why should I?  They are only trying to be nice to me.

To the voice that fills me with anxiety and causes me to not trust people, GET OUT!  I am tired of living with you in my head.  It is bad enough that I grew up just waiting for the other shoe to drop, but now I live my life waiting for every bad thing to happen.  This causes me great stress.  I learned not to trust people because you cannot count on anybody but yourself.  I now realize that is not the case, but when that is what you have been conditioned with, it is hard to break the cycle.  I am learning to be more trusting and if I confide and trust you with my deepest, darkest secrets, feel privileged.  Not everybody gets in.

To my wall building voice:  I am hiring a demolition crew.  I think I must have come out of the womb with a wall built up.  As I think back, even in elementary school I was quiet and standoffish untill I got to know you.  I was and still am so good at building walls that you may not even know I have built one to keep you out.  I have dealt with a lot of hurt and the only way to keep me sane (ok relatively sane) was to build a wall around my heart to protect it.  That also means that people could not get in.

To the voice that tells me: "You will never be good enough!"  Good enough for who?  God loves me.  My friends love me.  Dare I say it even some of my students love me.  Just because I am not good enough for you does not mean I am not good enough.  I remember in high school going from a size 16 to a size 7 over the course of a summer.  I remember going shopping for jeans and being told, "if you just lose 5 more pounds you will be a size 5 like..."  I think that was a damn good accomplishment to get that low.  No wonder I have had a poor self image my entire life.  I would never be able to live up to your level of enough.

So I guess what I am trying to say is that I want you (the voices) gone.  I am not going to sacrifice myself anymore just because you have a problem with it.  I am great just as I am and I would not change a thing.  Is there forgiveness? Always.  Is there hope for tomorrow? Yes.  Does healing have to take place? Absolutely.

Peace out Peeps. I have some voices to kick out.