forgive yourself.

the list of things for which you need to show yourself forgiveness is a long one. and it's growing by the minute.

it's time to start, rhi. 

sit down with that list and take a breath.

forgive yourself the medium pepperoni pizza you ate last week. know that it was a bad day, not a bad life. forgive yourself for the reason why.

five years ago, you never would've asked yourself the question. realize you love yourself enough to be asking it now. 

forgive yourself the slip and move on.

continue to remind yourself how much you love who you are becoming. and sometimes that is someone who slips. slip and get up, sweet girl. your only other option is to stay in the holes you make for yourself. 

but these holes are not as big as you think they are.

forgive yourself the loneliness that sometimes is too much to bear. bear it. you are capable of bearing it. feel the beautiful quiet of being on your own and growing in that.

forgive yourself for not waking to go to the gym. when you add things to your life, you sleep less. when you sleep less, 4:30 in the morning is the last thing your body wants. your body is screaming for more sleep. and your body is screaming to run and spin. you're getting there. be patient with yourself.

love yourself enough to feel all of the bad and sad and heavy and ugly. trust that you are strong enough to get through all of these. because you are.

forgive yourself the times you doubted that.

forgive yourself the times you still want to numb your feelings with food. you are feeling things and sometimes that is hard. you've done it before. you are capable of doing it again. today, tomorrow, the rest of your life. remind yourself as often as you need to.

forgive yourself for taking on the world's problems. it is not your job to take care of the world. you are your own world. take care of your world.

this is your only job.

it is not your job to save anyone but yourself. remove them from the equation.

it is not your job to worry about who you may offend with what you write on here. this is your space and your church and if someone chooses to find one line and make it about them, let them. and leave them to it. you cannot control how other people react and rhi, that is one of the hardest things for you to accept. people who choose to walk out of your life have done you a favor. they are the ones who have lost. anyone who needs convincing that being in your life is a good thing is not worth the energy. it hurts even more when they are close to you, but there comes a time when you have to stop questioning why. this is that time, rhi.

you need to do it. do it and walk on.

forgive yourself for comparing your writing to other people's writing. they are not you. their path is not your path. write for you. sit in front of that computer or that note pad or that scrap of paper and write for you. sit in it and feel it. this is how you will get better. better in every sense of the word.

forgive yourself the days you starved yourself. forgive the days you ate too much as a way to punish yourself. forgive yourself the times you did this to yourself ten years ago. five years ago. one week ago. 

forgive yourself for crying on the bus. on the corner. those tears were a screaming sign from your body,  from your heart. stop doing this to yourself. you are more than this moment when you feel so low that every part of you aches.

forgive yourself for wanting to kiss the man who took you to dinner last saturday night, if only because he was the first man in a very long time who wanted to truly talk to you and look at you and see you. and it was a lovely feeling, this person wanting to spend time with you and make you laugh. lovely and unfamiliar. 

one day all of it won't feel so unfamiliar.

forgive that one dinner made things fresh again and you aren't ready for it. give yourself time. you will be. 

forgive yourself for not wanting to let him see you. you aren't ready yet. you'll get there. but you know something? you will get hurt again. you will, but next time, you won't walk into it blindly.

forgive the part of you that still assumes a man is thinking something negative about you when he looks at you. let him look.

be thankful for signs from the universe. that one of your beautiful friends chose the perks of being a wallflower for book club. if only for you to settle in with it on the train and remember the first time you read these words: "sometimes people use thought to not participate in life." so you could look at those words and remember that every moment of every day you are the maker of your life and you are fully present for all of it. you are thinking and feeling and participating. 

forgive yourself the days when the last thing you want to do is participate.

be thankful that the scale wasn't in the locker room this morning. forgive yourself for wanting to step on it only to make yourself feel bad. 

that was the old you. remember the woman you are when you walk through the city at night, on the bike, running through your neighborhood, in front of your computer, lost in a book: a woman who knows where she is going, and in no way does it resemble from where she came.

forgive yourself the days you are unkind to yourself. no one notices your mistakes the way you do. all of the time you spend looking at your stomach and your thighs, take that time and write. the time you spend being angry at yourself and berating yourself. pause. take that anger and write.

you know who you are, who you want to be, who you never will be again. keep walking towards that woman, run towards the woman you are turning into. listen to your heart and the voice inside, the voice you've only begun to find. and it's a terrifying and amazing thing. and you want to scream at this woman you're turning into and hold her and protect her. 

you were put on this earth to write. this is your calling. words are saving your life. the truth is saving your life.

you are saving your life.

you do not owe anything to anyone. say it again, you do not owe anything to anyone. 

you only owe truth to yourself. continue to listen to your truth, what you know is pure and good.

you are your own worst enemy, but more and more often, you are becoming your best friend. be gentle with yourself.

you're getting there.