Why Letting Go is the Hardest Gift to Give Yourself

2020 was a year of many tremendously hard challenges for us all and I can confidentially say that never all at once have we as an entire civilization had to endure so many hardships and profound changes in such little time. Growing with continuous political divide and an ever changing attitude towards what it means to be human, I found the greatest lesson I had to learn this year in the strife brought to me by the loss of love and my self worth.

For a long time, I believe I was raised to see men as my source of value. That my desirability and prosperity was determined by my success in finding a husband. Such a simple and single task defined my entire self worth in accordance to the values my family instilled upon me. While I grew up in a privileged, middle class American home, I was and still am that girl at heart and I cannot shake the feeling of incorrectness when I subscribe to another way of thinking.

This year, I felt my first heartbreak. I had the opportunity to experience the life shattering moment when someone looks at you and goes “I don’t want you.” Not all of us know how it feels, and while I prepared all I can by watching an insane amount of media growing up, I could not have been any less prepared to crouch down and pick up all the shattered pieces of my broken heart.