I have delayed making decisions, hoping I would first find someone that would give me permission to make them. Hoping they would provide some insurance policy beyond my own judgement, so that I would always be able to fall back on, well, so and so thought it was a good idea.
I have been afraid of my own mind, skeptical of my own intuition, eager to relinquish the rights to my life and give them over to others.
I have declared myself unfit to govern myself, again and again and again. I have loved myself less, stripped myself of my own power and called it humility, because I did not know how, or was afraid to own every bit of my being. I have traded happiness for approval and run my voice through filter after filter to make it more pleasing to the ears it would fall upon, regardless of the strain it caused me. I have made myself less. And in doing so, I have put myself in a box, but lately I can feel the seams of the walls buckling around me, and the lid shifting above me.