You belong. You don’t have to fit in. You don’t have to fight with yourself to become someone else. You belong to you – as you are.

I have struggled a majority of my life to feel as if I belong. I never felt like I quite fit in with the people around me – no matter how close they were. I have felt a lot of the times that I was on the outside looking in. Unsure and uncertain.

You belong here and now. You don’t have to give in to the pressure of disliking yourself. You belong to you – as you are.

For a very long time and sometimes even now, I’ve struggled with self-acceptance. How can I belong to myself if I don’t even accept myself? Who am I if I’m always trying be someone I am not? I sometimes can’t tell where I truly begin and end. I have been told time and time again of how to act, who to be, what to dream of, what moves to make… Eventually their voice became the voice in my head.

You belong despite your past. You can unlearn, and you can grow to accept yourself. You belong to you – as you are.

I am learning to validate myself. I am unlearning being unkind to myself and diminishing my feelings. I am growing to fill the empty spaces – the spaces that I abandoned out of fear of judgment or rejection. I am coloring and shading in the lines – the lines of me. I am no longer shying away from self-love. I have realized that I don’t have to belong everywhere or to everyone.

I belong to me – as I am.