I've spent a lot of time, years, thinking that I wasn't enough. Tearing myself apart trying to be what I thought everyone else wanted me to be. I tried to be thinner, smarter, better but it never seemed to be enough. I looked in the mirror and didn't see enough. I looked at the scale and I saw too much. I would be talking to people and feel like they weren't listening, but really just waiting for me to finish talking. I realized that I had started to hate my own stars because someone else didn't see constellations in my eyes and that wasn't fair.

So, I decided that I was going to be enough for the person that really mattered, myself.

Because I decided that I wasn't going to find my worth in what other people saw in me or thought of me. I found my worth in the fact that I learned how to think for myself. I found my worth in the strength it took to get out of bed on the days where I didn't want to face the world. I found my worth in standing up for myself and walking away from situations where I wasn't respected the way I deserved to be.

I would be lying to you if I said it was easy. I struggled every day (I still do) to love myself. But every time it was three in the morning and I found myself crying over things I couldn't control, I forgave myself. I looked in the mirror and told myself that I was enough for the only person who mattered me. Every morning before school when I found myself on the bathroom floor throwing up, already too aware of all times that day I was going to feel worthless, I took a deep breath and told myself that I could handle anything that day would throw at me.

It's a daily battle, but eventually, the time came where I was able to sleep through the night and get ready for the day without hating the skin I lived in and the words that come out of my mouth. But I've also realized how many girls, and guys too, live every day of their lives feeling like they aren't enough. But you are. You don't take up too much space and you don't say all the wrong things. You don't have to apologize for laughing too loud. You don't have to apologize for not wanting to be like everyone else. So in part, I wrote this to myself, or the girl I used to be. But I also wrote this for you, in hopes that you will realize your worth and start asking for it.