These past couple of weeks, I have found myself struggling with self-love. I am learning to set boundaries, and what I can and cannot accept. Learning that it is all a part of the struggle:

1. Struggling to feel beautiful, when every magazine is plastered with proof that I’m not.

2. Struggling to keep healthy (mentally and physically), when depression and insecurity introduce themselves in the comfort of food and hiding away.

3. Struggling to deal with ghosts, people and things that I cannot continue to keep in the past.

4. Struggling with homesickness, knowing that when I go home, it isn’t the same as it once was.

5. Struggling with distance, and the many spaces it puts between my family.

6. Struggling with money, knowing that it is the cause of so many problems, and how it shouldn’t be.

7. Struggling with time, wishing it away for the next big thing, and in the same breath, wanting it to slow down.

8. Struggling with standing up for myself, when I can’t do so without apologizing or explaining.

9. Struggling with friendships, to let go of those that have dissolved or no longer serve me.

10. Struggling with the definition of womanhood, with the looks I receive when I say I do not desire children.

11. Struggling with balance, of always being present but planning for the future.

12. Struggling with work, of paving the way to my dreams, or letting them pass me by in the safety net of a 9-5.

13. Struggling with saying no, because it would mean admitting defeat and weakness.

14. Struggling with saying yes, because it could bring the unknown.

15. Struggling with death, what to take from it when it takes so much from us.

16. Struggling with change, how to channel the energy into the things I can control, and accept whatever is left.

17. Struggling with worry, that robs my days and nights of happiness.

18. Struggling with my mind, to put anxiety to sleep when it is the culprit of my lack thereof.

19. Struggling with acceptance, realizing that not everyone will see your heart the way you do.

20. Struggling with peace, and how we will have to create it out of nothing if we cannot find it in this world.

These struggles, among others, will continue to be for the rest of my life, maybe in a larger capacity, with deeper cuts, or in more complex ways.

I believe that the most difficult struggle is not these things against me, but myself. For me to convince myself these small battles mean nothing on the war I’m waging. That to believe feeling everything so deeply does not mean I am weak, or insecure. That I do not have to apologize for my thoughts, or anchor my heart where it is not meant to be. And to stay true to who I am, when I am sometimes not sure who that even is.