I wish I'd known

I wish I'd known, at 16, that I had a lovely, healthy body and I really didn't need those herbal diet aids, or to work out like crazy to be thin and pretty...I already was.

I wish I'd known as a 26 year old single mother, working, and going to school, just holding it together, and eating fudgecicles for breakfast, lunch and dinner, that when my sociology teacher asked me what I was doing for stress relief and I told her I wasn't stressed, I was wrong.

I wish I'd known at 30, then 35, then 38 that my 30's were a wonderful decade and I didnt need to waste them fretting because life wasn't perfect, I wasn't perfect, my kids, my husband, my house wasn't perfect...they were all perfect enough, I just didn't recognize it. 

I wish I'd known that I needn't have starved myself to be thin, it never really worked anyway. 

I wish I'd known that pouring out the very essence of me to take care of everyone else would deplete me in ways I would never have imagined possible. That giving from an empty vessel is impossible and its not selfish to indulge in self-care. 

I wish I'd known how many mistakes I would make, yet things would turn out okay, despite of me. 

I wish I'd known that one day I'd wake up in my mid forties and wonder why I'd done so much wishing of my precious life away. That it would have been easier to just fix, to change paths, to right myself a decade ago. I wish I'd known that when you keep digging yourself in, the hole just gets bigger and the work harder to get yourself out. 

I wish I'd known, but I didn't. So I forgive my not knowing, my not paying attention and I move on, and start to fill the hole in little by little. I give myself grace, slow down, and breathe.