It’s late. We’ve got wine.

There are four of us, just a bunch of girls sitting around a kitchen table. There are crayons and a few toys next to me, and I push them gently over to make room for my arms. I try to tuck my feet up on the chair, but I can only awkwardly fit the heel of my left foot, tucking my toes under my other leg and leaning the rest of my bent leg against the table.

We’re talking about someone else, someone not there, and they mention how she’s a challenge to be around, but God is using her to teach them patience, and they can’t really be picky about friends right now. It’s the Christ-like thing, to be her friend, and my heart sinks as I try to sort through this information. I wonder what they say about me when I’m not there, feeling that familiar dread deep in my gut. This isn’t the first conversation I’ve heard like this. It won’t be the last.

I’d learned to fear others very early on. There was religious trauma from leaders in churches, classmates and teachers, childhood abuse. My older sister tells me I have a horse face with large teeth, and my grandmother makes comments about how I never stop eating. Years later, I put on weight when I’m dating my ex-husband, weight I later realize is from the trauma there too, when he pushed boundaries and punched holes through walls, but I never feel comfortable in my body anyway. There’s the purity culture I accepted for years, the way we could never show our shoulders or wear shorts a certain length, the way we had to hide our bodies out of shame and to prevent our brothers in Christ from sinning. My own family was harsh enough, so the world was even more terrifying.

I don’t cut as a teenager or develop disordered eating, but I begin to pick.

I’d stare at myself in the mirror, looking for imperfections and pimples, squeezing my skin until angry red welts rose up. It became a ritual when I felt helpless, flaring up less and less as I got older, but always when I was stressed. One night, I was going rock climbing with a youth group the next day, so I was picking, and then I remembered that warm compresses drew out blemishes. The water wasn’t hot enough, I decided, so I kept reheating it. I wasn’t seeing the results I wanted. Then my skin came off with a swipe of the washcloth, and I realized I’d burned my nose. I found other ways, too, almost accidentally. Not cutting per se, but cutting adjacent, perhaps. I taught myself how to shave my legs, and sometimes I’d press wrong and take off skin. It was almost satisfying, much like the way that, as a kid, I’d twist a loose tooth around in my mouth, feeling it dig deeper, and then, as a teen, seeing the blood, nicking ankles and shin bones.

I’m taught that I needed a husband, had to have kids. And I wanted my own family. I liked taking care of babies. I was 13 when my youngest sister was born. Ten when Margaret was born. I wanted to do what I thought God was asking me to do.

But I also made things and sold them door to door. I knew I was going to go to college. I wanted a career. Then my marriage didn’t work out, and, years later, I realized that even married women have to go through a process of self-acceptance. A relationship doesn’t mean much if a woman doesn’t even like herself. Having a spouse or partner doesn’t just change those inner thoughts.

I could hear all day that I was pretty and talented, but if I didn’t accept that for myself, it meant nothing.

All the voices that showed up when I was picking at my skin weren’t my own, but only what others said repeatedly. I’d hear those words again years later, as an adult, realizing I wasn’t wanted where I’d been asked to come. Others would open their homes but seem to want me out again so quickly, and I’d pick at my skin, trying to figure out what I had done wrong.

I was the common denominator, after all.

I couldn’t even look at myself in 2016 after my divorce, and when Margaret died, I couldn’t keep avoiding it all. How I felt about myself, the friends I was surrounding myself with, the things I’d believed as truth for so long. If I was going to start the long process of healing from all that trauma, I had to pick me. Love me. Choose me. Regardless of what anyone else said or did. 

Finding that deep, genuine love in a romantic relationship seems as unlikely as winning the lottery, so if I had to die alone, was I even someone I could do that for? Or even as I was dying, would I let those voices pop up in my head, telling myself I was so worthless I couldn’t even die right?

I started telling myself I was proud of myself. I started telling myself I could do it. I started telling myself that I had values I could pursue and that were important to me. I started telling myself that family was not more important than anything else. I started telling myself that it was okay to be alone.

I was still scared. Starting my business, even, was terrifying. I’m a woman, after all. I wasn’t even sure anyone would take me seriously. What if I messed up? What if I was a failure? What if I didn’t know anything?

But also, I decided, what if I could love myself enough to set better boundaries and walk away from anyone and everyone who disrespected those boundaries? What if I figured out what was important to me, what values I found necessary?

The cost can be high. Not everyone can. But as I shifted my thinking and tried to start, truly, caring for myself, I found that I could better care for others. And I started finding the people I wanted to hang out with who wanted to hang out with me.

And what if, instead of waiting to be picked by someone, what if I started asking myself if I even wanted to pick that person? Even if they were interested and trying. If it was a “meh”, then it wasn’t good enough. Picking a partner carefully was finally okay. Picking friends carefully was okay.

And while I don’t need a partner, cuddles can be nice. Finding someone who enhances my life could be nice. I’ve decided that existing in this space where I’m happy alone, but I’m still open to possibility, is okay. Where I won’t compromise my values or my boundaries, where I won’t be on the lookout for that someone special.

Where I’m okay just as I am.