To be totally honest, I don’t think I’ve ever been absolutely happy with myself. Each version of me feels unworthy until I undoubtedly morph into someone new. Everything is temporary after all. Maybe one day, I will appreciate my present self. But for now, I long for the Kaleighs of the past while wishing I could become someone new.
Eventually, everything will finally feel perfectly aligned. I will wake up and stop cringing at old photos. Stop nitpicking my face in the mirror. Stop obsessing over what’s missing and start becoming proud of what is there. I will be proud, not just of what I have survived so far, but of who I have become.
But right now? I scroll through my camera roll memories like I’m stalking the Instagram account of someone cooler. I glamorize the versions of me that once felt totally awkward and just as unsure as I feel about myself today. I’m convinced that I used to glow brighter, laugh louder, and love harder even though I remember crying in the bathroom at that party and leaving nights out with anxious pits in my stomach.
The present never feels like enough until it becomes the past.
Maybe the work isn’t in becoming something better. Maybe it’s in sitting still and realizing that this version of me deserves love too. Not someday when I’ve healed and gotten hotter. Now.
Hey Kaleigh! 
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