I didn't want myself.

Tomorrow will be exactly 12 weeks since I placed Sunshine. It was the day that I signed the paperwork that said I was no longer "Alisha and Sunshine" but "just Alisha" again. It doesn't feel like its been so recent. It feels like it happened a long long time ago, like a different life or something. I remember for weeks before having her I just wanted it to be over with. I just wanted to have my baby, place her with her parents, and get on with my life. I was so stressed and emotionally exhausted and tired of being huge and fat.
And some days, unbelievably, I wish I could go back to that life.  I get tired of being "just Alisha". I wish I could see her little feet and hands poking through my stomach. I wish I could feel her hiccup just one last time. Thinking back makes me wish I would have cherished all those little things while I was pregnant. 

Anyways, after that little memoir of my pregnancy, I come to my true dilemma in life: Boys. I had it easy when I was pregnant...not many guys are into pregnant girls, and therefore I wasn't confronted with it for a long time.  Now, I must re-learn to socialize with members of the opposite sex.  Not that I didn't talk to guys while I was pregnant...I did, but I felt no pressure to want them to like me. I knew they didn't and wouldn't. But now! Now, I again feel the yearning of a young girl for attention from boys.  I want them to think I'm cute and flirt with me and want to hang out.  And even before I was pregnant, that was all I had ever wanted from a boy. His attention! I just wanted to feel special and pretty.  Which ended up being fatal for me.

I don't know when it happened exactly, or why, or how, but I know that at some point between ages 12 and 14 my sense of self worth began depending on boys and not myself and who I knew I was.  I started struggling with depression.  I thought I was fat and ugly.  I felt untalented and uninteresting and unwanted.  I became very shy, fearful of people and socializing.  Which was not characteristic of me.  When I was younger I was never shy or depressed, I was confident in myself as a cute, smart, fun girl. And somewhere, somehow, that awesome girl started hating herself.

The only time I didn't hate myself was when I had a guy constantly telling me I was pretty or fun or cool.  If someone else didn't want me, I didn't want myself.  It was a cycle, slowly deepening each time I met a new boy. It went like this: Girl meets boy. Girl likes boy. Boy likes girl and gives her a little attention. Girl likes boy alot more. Boy gives girl a little more attention. Girl keeps liking boy more. Boy begins to lose interest. Girl becomes desperate to get that little bit of attention again. So she does whatever it takes to keep his interest...which meant giving up a little more of herself than she really ever wanted to. Eventually boy loses interest completely and girl is hurt and confused. And it happens again and again and again. Except each time the girl gives up a little more and a little more hoping each time that the new boy will stay...and he never does.

I stopped believing I was worth anything. Nobody wanted me. I was ugly and fat and boring. It breaks my heart now to look back at myself when I was 17; I really was pretty and smart. But I thought that I needed some immature guy to tell me it for it to be true. But now I look in the mirror, and although I am 10 lbs heavier with stretchmark scars and I will never look quite the same again...I love myself. For exactly who I am. For the intelligent, talented, beautiful daughter of God that I was when I was born and always have been.

So, to other teenage girls, don't do like I did and forget what you're worth. Don't forget who you are. You are "priced far above rubies." (Proverbs 31:10)  Even if some 15 year old boy who doesnt know his left hand from his right tells you you're not- you are. I know it, God knows it, and you know it.