How do I put this softly

Relationships

How do I put this softly…

No one’s going to fix you.

No one’s going to fill the gaping void inside you.

No one’s going to make you love yourself more, respect yourself more, or treat yourself better.

No one can fill your cup, make all of your dreams come true, or be the human in shining armor who’s going to sweep you off your feet and fix your relationship with your dad.

Sorry, don’t shoot the messenger.

I’ve tried to whisk and be whisked. Unfortunately, to no avail—it doesn’t work.

The only way I’ve learned to love myself is by proving to myself that I am worthy of love. By setting boundaries. By making really hard decisions. By committing to my goals and sticking to them.

This isn’t fun… It’s rewarding, but it’s not rainbows and butterflies.

I’ve been sober for 4.5 years. I’ll reach 5 years on January 1, 2025—that’s if I continue to decide every day that I am worth sobriety, that I deserve the life I’ve built for myself. Every day, I wake up and make the decision all over again to be a sober person. These four and a half years of sobriety have required me to decide, every single day, that I’m worth it. That the life I’m building is worth it. That I respect and care about myself enough to choose better for myself.

Walking away from things that don’t respect me has given me immense respect for myself. I still make self-deprecating choices all the time. I’m human. Progress, not perfection—one day at a time.

But making these seemingly impossible choices has made me respect myself. I don’t know if I ever truly did until I started proving it to myself.

Did I not think I deserved more? Did I not think I was worthy?

Through “my-future-depends-on-this” situations, I’ve made the tough choices. I’ll continue to make them. It sucks, but that’s life.

Our lives are measured by the choices we make. We are constantly brought to a fork in the road, having to decide whether to go east or west.

I plan to follow the sun and continue choosing west—towards more life, more happiness, success, and bigger dreams.

Every time I make a decision that doesn’t honor the future I’m working for, it takes me five steps backward. I won’t pass go and collect $400.

Step by step, choice by choice, I’ll keep laying down the building blocks of a life I love—made by myself, not by a knight in shining armor.