You're Not Enough

2/5/18

He came back again, my tormentor. Just as he always does, right when I'm getting good again. We define love the way we experience it, and so far all it is is pain for me. A few months ago, I met a boy. Let's call him Jason, I'll tell you everything about our story, but right now I just want to speak about what happened this weekend. I need to let it all out. I feel my chest sinking every time I breathe. He brought back the anxiety I had fought so hard to get rid of. I'm still fighting though, I promise, I never ​give up. Just a little preface, I had met this boy during my ultimate high and he was one of the reasons​ for it. It didn't last long, and when it started getting bad, it never got better. It just got worse and worse ​and led me to now. I have been through "I'm not good enough" stages many times, but this was one of the worst. I knew I wasn't doing enough, and I was scared I didn't know how to. I've been going through a lot of things, and I had just felt unworthy of life. I didn't deserve to have what I have right now. I didn't know how to use my blessings. Point is, I was feeling like hell making myself feel worse, and finally I started making moves. I started getting things done and was finally starting to see my paths clearing up. Until that phone call at 2 a.m. My cousin and I had taken my uncle to dinner for his bday. I decided to look at my Instagram​ and found out Jason was with this girl I had never worried about. She was one of his best friends. I felt my heart sink, but I reacted better than the last time I thought he was with another girl. I was happy, and I didn't want to let that ruin it. My cousin had fallen asleep, and I was watching a Shane Dawson video. I looked at my phone and saw he was calling. I answered immediately because I was hoping for the opportunity to throw it in his face that I figured it out, and he couldn't get me back. I heard his voice, and all of a sudden I'm trembling. I was shaking so bad I woke my cousin up. I felt nauseous, and I couldn't breathe. He had sent me into a panic attack. After a few minutes, he said: ​"I wish you were my girlfriend." I asked him why and he said: "Because you're the perfect person for me, I feel like one day in the future we'll get married and have beautiful Jewish kids." "But you're not Jewish...​" "Well at least one of them can be Christian." "No, that's not how it works. This isn't just a religion, it's a lifestyle. It's what I chose and I'm not going to half-ass​ it anymore" "Well that's not fair!" That's not fair...funny. He had done so many things to me that we're not fair, but me wanting to have the family and the lifestyle I had been working towards for the past five years was unfair to him. I guess it was a little unfair how I went about things before, but in the end, ​he ended up hurting me way more. I'm converting to Judaism, and I want to marry a Jewish man and have beautiful Jewish kids. But he was so perfect for me that I had just put that to the side, and thought I'd deal with it later. Every time​, I've compromised my personal journeys for anything it's never worked out. But this was by far the worst lesson yet. He never cared about religion the way I did, he didn't understand how I felt and he didn't care to. I thought this was the reason he didn't want to be with me. I knew he had acted selfishly all this time, but I thought that was the reason so I tried not to be so harsh in judgment​. Until he told me the real reason. "You know why I couldn't marry you? Because honestly, ​I didn't think you knew what you wanted in life." I was confused, I thought he meant he didn't know if I wanted him. "I felt like you were just not doing anything with your life, and that's why I couldn't be with you." And there it was, right between the lines, "You weren't good enough." He hung up abruptly, and I lay there trying to process it for a second. I wasn't doing anything? But he never even asked me about my plans? Not that I could tell him anyways. I had a secret. That thing I've been procrastinating for five years. The mistake that took over my life. I understood why he would've felt that way, but I had only known him for two weeks when he first started hurting me. He stopped talking to me for a while ​and didn't explain why. Then, he came back and acted like nothing had happened. He had done this a couple of times. I texted him, "you don't leave someone you claim to be in love with because they're not doing anything with their lives especially after two weeks!" I felt so angry. He really was so selfish. He never asked me about my plans, and at the time we were together I was doing very good. I had plans, and I told him about them but he made me feel like they weren't enough. I was waiting too long, I wasn't doing enough. But I knew why I had to wait, I just couldn't tell him. So I didn't speak about it again, and he didn't ask. You don't decide if you want to marry someone or not in two weeks, and you don't fall in love in two weeks. But if you claim to love someone you wouldn't let them destroy themselves. You wouldn't let them stay small. You would​ push them to do greater! That's what I tried to do for him. He had just left army training ​and wasn't sure about what he was going to do. I tried my best to be there for him, and help him figure it out. I told him "you don't love me." But he kept telling me he did. He wanted to marry me, he was so in love with me. I asked him about the girl, and he told me straight up. I think he only did this because he knew I already knew. He told me he wasn't with her anymore because she wasn't who he wants. It was me, but how could it be me? He went on about how he doesn't know what I'm doing with my life and that's why we couldn't be together. My parents and I had spoken about my plans, and how God willing when I meet my husband​ he will feel like the luckiest person in the world to have a woman like me. Pure, kind, strong, and successful​. Yet, here he was the boy claiming he wants to marry me telling me he loves me, but I'm just not enough. We ended the night at 4 a.m. The next day I tried to see him, I wanted to talk face to face. To explain myself​ a little better, and make it clear he didn't love me. The rest of the call he was telling me he loved me. I would tell him he didn't, that his actions never matched his words, and he'd ask me how he can show me. I don't have to teach anyone how to love me!! I never got to see him ​and spent the whole day with a knot in my chest. I felt nauseous, and I couldn't stop shaking. The next day the girl posted a picture of them. I texted him right away, his response: "I told you I was dating her dude!"

Ouch. My heart still hurts. Anyways, I broke down. I couldn't believe I let him make me feel this way again. I felt dead inside. I couldn't control my body. What was it that I was feeling? Why was it that this "love" of mine made me feel so much pain?

That night my dad spoke to me. He obviously had no clue what was going on because I wouldn't dare speak to him about a boy like this. He told me "You know I struggled with your mom's bad habits a lot. There were times that I thought to myself, is this worth it? She fixed herself, and it's extraordinary​ how much she has grown since we got married. But it was awful to look at the person you love and think I'm going nowhere​ here. My goal with you is to break you out of your habits now, no matter how tough I have to be on you. I want your husband to know he found a treasure and to never have to second guess it. I want your kids to think 'wow​, I have the best mom in the world!' That is my goal." He didn't see me sitting behind him in the car crying. "That's what I want to," I told him. That is the goal, and I'm getting there. I've changed so much this past year it's crazy. I feel so proud of myself, and I'm not letting this boy knock me down. Don't ever let anyone make you feel like you're not good enough. We are always enough. We just have to see our potential and stop at nothing to reach it. People like Jason are the ones who break us ​so that we can build ourselves back up. They push us and destroy us, but in the end, we form into stars bright enough for all of them to see, this is who I am. I am enough.

This pain is not the end of me.

-D

P.S.
I'm really just pouring my heart out here. This is a really fresh wound, I just had to let it out. I'm still healing. I didn't explain it all that well and I'm not sure how I feel about this post, but it's just what I have inside right now. Thank you for listening if you managed to read the whole thing.