No More Places to Hide

 When I look back at my life,

I can see all the creative ways

I learned to avoid the things

I didn’t know what to do with.

Before recovery,

I hid my feelings of unworthiness

by helping other people.

I threw myself into creative projects.

I excelled in my career.

From the outside,

I probably looked like I had it all together.

But I knew how I felt about myself.

Others didn’t.

I carried a tremendous amount of shame,

but I became very good at hiding it.

Helping people gave me purpose.

Creating gave me somewhere to go.

Work gave me something to accomplish.

And all of it kept me busy enough

that I didn’t have to look too closely

at the emptiness inside.

It looked like I had a charmed life.

But appearances can be deceiving.

Inside, I felt empty.

For a long time,

I thought I was simply being productive.

Now I can see

that some of it was survival.

I had learned how to build beautiful places

to hide in.

But eventually,

there came a time when

there were no more places to hide.

Recovery began to turn the lights on.

And once the lights were on,

I had to see myself.

The shame.

The fear.

The unworthiness.

The little girl who had been waiting

to be found.

It wasn’t easy.

But perhaps that was the beginning

of becoming whole.

Because you can’t heal

what you keep hiding from.

And today,

I don’t want any more places to hide.

I want to know myself.

All of me.

And finally learn

that I don’t have to accomplish,

create, or rescue my way

into being worthy of love.

I already am.