I’ll admit, it was while he was telling me off, so he might have been doing it to remind me why I shouldn’t really be fucking about but still.
I used to have low self-esteem, so the anxious little girl inside me is beaming right now. She’s walking tall right now, making eye-contact and smiling. Actually smiling. And why shouldn’t she?
Somebody acknowledged her, noticed her for something she wanted to be acknowledged for.
She was _seen_.
But so was I.
I was seen, and in being _seen_ (acknowledged, praised) I have seen myself more clearly. While my inner little girl is overjoyed, my outside shell is also pleased, but unobtrusively so. She’s calmer, far more critical of praise and it’s motives.
She doesn’t need to feed off scraps of commendation to keep her ailing self-esteem alive.
She’s seen herself _grow_.
And I know this is only a little thing. One friendly word in a flurry of other reproaching ones. But it’s the little things that show how much you’ve grown. These are your immediate reactions, you on off-pilot mode.
This is _you_, really.
And I like this me.
I loved my former self, my little girl, but you can never love a person more than they love themselves. Love isn’t always a feeling, it’s the way you act. Loving yourself is telling yourself to keep your head up when you’d like nothing more than to bash against the wall when you’ve done something stupid. Loving yourself is studying when you don’t ‘_need_’ to, exercising when you don’t want to, acknowledging uncomfortable truths you’d rather hide.
It’s looking after yourself, even when you’d rather destroy yourself.
My little girl did not, could not, love herself.
How then, can you love someone more than they hate themselves?
I like myself now. I’m imperfect, but perfectly so. I’m here for myself, mentally and physically.
I can’t love my little girl anymore, so I pity her instead. Immortalised, frozen in youthful insecurity and trapped and forgotten in my consciousness, my little girl’s living reminder of what I never want to be again.
It’s funny. My teacher is sitting at home, completely unaware that he has accidentally dragged me down memory lane. Lol