It was just a text. Just a comment, made by a close friend, intended as a joke. And usually I can take a joke at least as well as anyone, if not better. Growing up with a brother and all the neighborhood boys taught me how to have a fairly thick skin to surround this tender heart of mine. But tonight I just needed a kind word, and I got the opposite. I just wanted to know that I was more than what I felt, and instead I was reminded of what I lack.
Perhaps a large part of it is my fault, for taking a bleeding heart to another broken human and expecting acceptance. But we are all stuck here together, til Kingdom Come, so sometimes other broken humans seem the logical choice. I don't know how to make it through a day here without some bumps and bruises to show for it. Maybe I'm just doing it wrong somehow, but that is life as I know it.
The Bible says we have the power of life and death in our words. Tonight I believe it is true, without doubt. I feel death shoving its greedy fingers into the hurt and lonely places in me, and I can't seem to get them out. Perhaps another glass of water and a good night's sleep will clear my head, but what will it take to clear the pain out of my heart? I feel a little lost and bewildered.
It was just a simple joke about another girl being prettier than I. But we live in a world where nothing is ever good enough, where there is always someone prettier, and richer, and better. I know by now, especially after this year, that we live in a world where I may never be enough. I am trying to face that reality bravely. I am trying to forgive, to move on. I am trying to be the best me that I can be, despite who I am not. But I am oh, so weary of longing to be the other girl...
I don't have much resolution for you tonight. Just a few tears that were 27 years in the making. I lie down and pray for healing tonight, and that one day a guy might look at me and not just see what I lack. Someday, maybe, someone will look right past the other girl and see me.
