alone is the last place i wanted to be

abandonment.

the root of all my problems.

this is not a new discovery. i've known this for, oh, about 20 years now. but its been on my mind recently.

you see, i can literally count on two hands the number of people in my life who haven't walked away from me. and, yes, i know that most people are not meant to be in our life forever, but just for a season. but i have been dealt some tough blows when it comes to relationships and people walking away.. starting with my biological father who gave up all rights when i was two and a half.

i'm not writing about this for people to feel guilty if they've been in my life and aren't anymore. i'm not saying, "please feel bad for me." don't.

my point is this- they say we have two natural reactions to tough situations. we pick between "fight" and "flight." i think because all i've seen is "flight" in my life that its all i know to do. or knew how to do. that is, until college happened.

during my four years of college, i learned how to fight... for silly things like grades i may or may not have deserved, for a job i loved, for good friendships, for things i saw purpose in, and finally, for myself.

that last one, the fighting for myself, is the hardest piece. i think when so many people walk away without fighting for you, it can be hard to believe that you are actually worth the hurt and heartache of a fight. just in the last year have i learned to fight for myself and my worth. i learned that its not selfish to fight for yourself sometimes. if you don't fight for yourself, it can be even harder to fight for the things you care about. it is easy for me to forgo a battle on my own behalf and choose to fight for a thing or person that i love instead.

it is not in my nature to really give up either. i am stubborn and hard-headed and always have been. the difference is, those words used to describe things like my work ethic in school, or wanting something when my parents said no... small, trivial things. now, these qualities have expanded to the way that i fight for big things in my life too. i have found that i fight even past the point where most people quit. there are things that seemed to have ended, yet, daily, i still fight for small pieces of them.

i'm still fighting.