...because I'm freaking trying, and trying is enough. Perfection isn't ideal, and turns out, some of my quirks make me interesting. Some of my stories are worth telling and there are people out there who want to hear them. So I'm going to stop comparing my life as it is right now to the life I thought I'd be living. This is the one I was supposed to be living all along.
...and I would stop using the terms "train wreck" and "fatty mcfatterson" and "basket case" when jokingly referring to myself, because I'm not actually joking when I use them, and those terms do not encompass who I actually am. They keep people at a distance from the real substance of who I am and what I'm experiencing. They keep me from being authentic, which in turn, keeps me from connecting to the people around me.
And if you know anything about depression, that's when it wins-- when you don't get out of bed and you turn down dates and you skip dinner with your girls because you're tired and maybe you don't want them to know that you haven't showered in two days and you don't plan to tomorrow either. I need community. I need that push. I need to stop giving my brain the dynamite it needs to slowly blast away at my identity while I sit on my couch and eat my feelings.
I really hate it when my best friend downs herself. She does this a lot, and she's been really fighting those demons. When we talk on the phone and she tells me she hates the way she looks and that she is frustrated and feels like a bad mother and wife because the chores aren't done and the baby has cheerios in her hair or whatever, I just want to shake her and tell her that I see her. I really see her. And she's trying. And she's more than those things she thinks about herself. And she is enough.
She is so much more than that, but it's a decent place for us all to start.