None of us walk around with reality colored glasses on. We’re all seeing things through the lens of our personal traumas. And that just makes everything sort of blurry and unfocused, and let’s be real, for some, very scary. It’s a filter we can’t turn off. And one we can only start to see through after hours and hours of therapy and/or inner work. I can’t afford therapy and if I’m being honest, the few times I’ve tried to start therapy in the last few years have not gone well. But, nonetheless, I am working on my inner Bonnie. Because I don’t want to stay the same. I want to become the person I feel I really am inside. A better version of me, that has her shit together and isn’t quite so neurotic. So inner Bonnie and I have been talking.

See, I realized I’ve spent the last 2+ years of my life trying to prove to myself and the world that I’m not a piece of unwanted, human garbage that everyone should turn their backs on. (And if I’m being really real, I’ve been trying to prove that to myself and the world since I was just a wee Bonnie lass.) But back to 2 years ago. I got dumped. I am, of course, speaking of the ending of my marriage. I was kicked to the curb, thrown aside, tossed away like yesterday’s jam.

I was confused, in shock, and scrambling to recover my sense of self and worth. And as nice as it would have been to take the time to really process what I had been through before trying to rebuild my life, I didn’t have that luxury, nor do most people who have gone through something traumatic. Life keeps throwing you up against the rocks like a merciless tide with no chance of letting up and you just have to find a way to stay alive, to survive.

So I went about rebuilding my life. But I felt like a piece of shit. Kind, generous, occasionally funny, shit. Who in the ever-loving fuck was I anyway? My life had been consumed by husband, kids, church, friends, hometown. Who the actual fuck was Bonnie? I didn’t know. I could only barely make out that she wanted to be a writer and she wanted a degree. I had to go find her. Not only that but I needed the world and myself to know that she was good enough and gosh darn it, people liked her. She didn’t deserve what happened to her and I needed to prove that.

For the past 2+ years I’ve been running around with competing goals in my head and heart. My head wanted to rebuild her life, get a degree, build a career, get healthy, rediscover music, art, poetry, politics, spirituality, all that jazz. My heart wanted someone or someones to want her, love her, worship her a little, tell her she’s pretty and feed her tacos. But both head and heart wanted everyone to see just how great she was doing, how she never deserved to be taken out with the rest of the garbage.

In service of my heart’s goals, I spent the last 2+ years chasing people who didn’t want me, getting myself into situations that only furthered the narrative in my mind that I am an unwanted pos. In trying to prove to myself that I am wanted, I’ve done the exact opposite. I’ve only proven that men are dogs and usually liars. (Not all men, whatever, idgaf.) But I’ve also proven that I am a mess with insecurities, rejection sensitivity dysphoria, adhd, autism, and probably some cptsd. (I find myself getting triggered sometimes. I’ll have a flashback and just start crying in the middle of the grocery store. For some reason, it happens in the grocery store a lot.) Men may be dogs and liars but I am also a hot mess with mental issues.

But having mental issues does not mean I’m an unworthy trash human. Nor does being fat or not particularly attractive (to some). The thing inner Bonnie and I are working on, as of today, is seeing ourselves as worthy just because we’re human. No more chasing. No more trying to prove our worthiness. Maybe focus a bit more on head’s goals without all the fanfare. I don’t need to be the best and brightest to be amazing. I already am. I don’t need to prove to everyone that I’m a smart cookie who brings a lot to the table. I just need to focus on rebuilding my life for me, not anyone else.

There are things I genuinely want in my life and pursuing those things might mean I’m not everyone’s cuppa. That’s got to become ok with me. I’m not a piece of shit. I’m a kind, generous, occasionally funny, lovely human person. And I’m mentally ill. And I’m fat. And I’m not the most beautiful girl in the world (sorry Prince). And I didn’t deserve to be treated the way I was. But I don’t have to go around proving that to the world, now do I?

Whatever anyone thinks of me, the good and the bad, it doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, I’m a decent person, rebuilding her life and writing blog posts about it. I have goals and those goals are good. I don’t need to prove anything or chase anyone. I can just exist. I can be all the things that are me and that’s ok.

Inner Bonnie and I, we’re gonna become better versions of ourselves. We’re gonna become the us we feel we are inside. It’s just gonna take work. And we can do the work.

P.S. I write this stuff because it helps me. I don’t know if it ever helps anyone else and I don’t really write with the goal of helping others in mind. (You know how people say “I’m sharing what I went through in the hopes that it will help others going through the same thing.” That’s not what I’m doing here.) I would love to be that altruistic and caring and stuff but I’m not. I don’t think anything I write on this blog is helping someone else. But it helps me and so I do it. That’s it.