It’s dark…really dark; the stars are waiting outside your window, hoping to get noticed but you don’t care; you are trying to avoid them, avoid everyone because you are crying; you are crying to yourself in the dead of the night; you can’t sleep; you can’t take sleeping pills either because a friend you have a crush on needs you to wake him up in the morning.
You have to wake up earlier to make that phone call at 5 am. It’s 3 am. Already and you are hoping that the night will pass by, that your fears and pain will subside down and you will get busy with work during the day. You don’t know if the moon is still up in the sky or not.
You don’t wish to know how much your crush enjoys spending time with that girl of your class. You know her pretty well.
The other day, she was rude to you; deep down, you know she was the one who got you out of the music team by coaxing the music teacher. Still, you don’t tell him anything because he loves her and you hope against hope that someday, he might understand your love.
You talk to yourself. It’s okay if he doesn’t. You will move on. You have moved on always. You are used to fake smiles.
But girl, how many long nights are you going to spend, crying to yourself?
You are badly hurt, by people you called friends; you are badly hurt by people who claimed to have loved you and then left you alone when their needs were over. You are badly hurt for reasons you know yourself but cannot change.
You are the doormat for everyone. Remember the time when days after days, nights after nights that girl who befriended you in the canteen cried to you after her break-up?
You listened to her sob-stories, you stayed by her side and then? Slowly you started to see a change in your ex-boyfriend. You know the misunderstandings weren’t your fault and where was she after he dumped you? With him, of course! They had started dating each other.
This is not just one case. This is one among the many incidents of your life where you have been considered as the second option. Have you ever thought, why?
Now, don’t go by the reasons they have given you. Those are just lame excuses of people who cause harm to others, who take advantages of others’ simplicity and innocence to fulfill their selfish needs and then throw them away when they aren’t needed anymore.
The reason is, you are just too nice for this harsh world.
You cannot say, ‘No’ to people.
You are scared that if you say, ‘No’, you will hurt them and that will make you sad.
You don’t want others to compromise.
Instead, you will sacrifice your happiness and comfort just to help them.
You are altruistic, you are diligent and people take this advantage over this.
Deep down, girl, you know you are inflicting harm on yourself.
Deep down, you know you aren’t happy, that it’s hard for you to go on but you need to.
You know that you hate to help those people who have bitched against you, who tried to pull you down. But you do help them because you just do not think of yourself. It is their hatred that took away your confidence and love for yourself.
Stand up! Look into the mirror. You see the girl standing in front of you?
She is beautiful; she is talented but do you know, that she is sad too? Do you know that she needs to be looked after too? Yes, that’s you and love her in the way you love others, no matter what.
Stop being treated as a second option! Stop being underestimated by everyone.
Love yourself because you are beautiful. Love yourself because you are talented. Don’t inflict pain upon yourself because others do the same with you. Don’t hurt yourself because others hurt you.
Fight for yourself because you need to be confident of yourself first. Fight for your rights because until and unless you do, nobody will stand by your side. Everyone should know that you are strong, that you have your own dignity, that they can’t get away by exploiting you.
Don’t let others feel that they can easily torture someone and roam around without guilt. Look after yourself. Speak up. Say, ‘No.’ You have your own mood swings, you have your own work.
Dear girl, put an end to your tag of ‘second option’. You cannot be anyone’s second option. You have to be ‘the option’, the one and only option. If it doesn’t happen, then don’t look back. Right people are waiting for you. Just love yourself and the world will learn to love you back.
By Emilia Gordon for TheMindsJournal