I have been tangled up with you for years in a very arms-length, don’t-get-too-close-to-me kind of way. Never have I felt worthy. Never have I felt safe. And this has been my own doing. It has been through my own unwillingness to open up, to be myself that I sit here now with this ball of hurt in my heart.

You caught me sometimes. You’d ask me how I was in a moment when I was two breaths away from a breakdown. You’d text me because my blog post sounded just a little too dark. And all the while, you were conquering the world—living a life I knew a sliver of. There was this place in the middle where we would meet each other. I’d almost always be awkward, and you’d almost always be rushed, but we would help each other there.

t’s not you, it’s me.

I have held back since we met. I have twisted myself up in order to keep from opening my heart. In actions, I could show you. In words, I rarely could. And when I told you about that past life we shared, you nodded. You understood. I told you I felt bound to you and that you had me at your service for life. You said, “I’m so glad you showed up.”

But as I write this, I see the problem; I see the pattern. I have this predilection for blaming myself. It’s something I learned in childhood, and yet, how can this all be on me? It feels so safe for me to dig through all my shortcomings and lay them at your feet. It feels familiar to crouch down so that you can stand tall.

I gotta break this cycle.

Far too many hours have been spent evaluating my worthiness—hours that could be spent creating. And I won’t take too much time to regret it; I’ll just do better instead. I will walk, write, and wail this out until I become the vessel for the answer to this lesson.

Yes, I know. Within me lies the problem and the solution. I am the question and the answer. And I thank you for showing up. I thank you for helping me look at something that was just so hard to see. As much as I would have loved the idea of waiting in the wings for the entirety of this lifetime—life, it seems, has other plans.

**originally written October 2017**

An update to this post is that I am learning to see people clearly—to accept them as they are without my wishes, wants, or biases. This is allowing me to walk away without excess emotion or regret. It’s allowing me to embrace reality. Thank goodness.

Sweetwood is NOW an AUDIOBOOK!

Thanks to Hannah Vandeven, The Sweetwood Series is available in audio format wherever you buy audiobooks.

The Sweetwood Series is a romantic suspense series—all in one book.

Sweetwood Secret is a second-chance romance.

Sweetwood Scandal is a small-town romance.

And Sweetwood Christmas is a feel-good holiday romance.