The Woman I Forgot… and the One I’m Finding Again

“Some days I look out and wonder where she went. But now I look within and remember, she is still here, just waiting for me to come back.”

Have you ever felt like you give everything to the people around you?
You put your own needs to the side because you love them. Because their problems seem bigger. Because you want to be there, always. And then time passes… and you forget about yourself completely.
You stop checking in with your own heart.
You stop recognizing the woman in the mirror.
She looks tired. Faded. Lost.

The worst part is, the people you love the most, those you pour yourself into, do not always see it. They do not hear you. They do not notice that you are running on empty. You are surrounded, but you feel lonely. You feel invisible. You feel hollow.
I know that feeling, because that woman was me.
It took me years to realize I had forgotten about myself. Years to say, “I do not like who I have become.” One day, I made a decision. I wanted to find that girl again. The one who smiled with pride. The woman who once believed she could conquer the world. The one who was not afraid of facing her pain.
I wanted to find the brave girl I used to be, the one who was always there for others, who people came to for comfort and advice. I wanted to find her, not because I owed it to the world, but because I owed it to myself.

 Here is what I learned:
You do not find yourself in a single day.
You can make the decision to start.

If you are reading this and it feels familiar, if your heart aches like mine did, I want you to know something.

You are not alone.
You are still in there.
And you are worth finding again.
Maybe your first step today is to see yourself in the mirror and tell yourself, I deserve to find myself again.

Maybe it is a new hairstyle.
Maybe it is putting on lipstick.
But do not do it for anyone else.
Do it for yourself.
Because this time, you are doing it for you.

If this speaks to you, feel free to leave a comment or share. You are not alone.