Overwhelming Gratitude

Sometimes

I try to lessen

The amount of gratitude I express

Because I imagine

People must find it annoying

It's just that

I've felt so bad

For most of my life

That when I reflect

On what I've been through

Where I've been

And how hard I've worked on myself

On learning a new way of being

On continuously

And tirelessly

Calling in more of what I want

On learning what it really means

To love myself

On feeling entirely new

In mind, body and spirit

I just can't help

But feel overcome

And overwhelmed

With enormous gratitude

It is so large

It is hard to contain within my being

My whole life

I felt burdened

By the idea of privilege

I suffered from depression

Because I thought I was privileged

And I also felt

Entirely useless

Valueless

A waste of space and opportunity

Privilege now has become a grey area for me

I see where I am privileged in the eyes of society

But underprivileged when it came to what I deserved as a child

And an adolescent

And a young adult

I was failed

Miserably

To the point where I didn't know how to cope

I didn't want to live

Life felt like an enormous burden

I was forced to carry

Yet I was told

I was privileged

To be alive

I didn't want to be

I never wanted to be

But I felt like

I had to be

And then I had a child

And all notions of ending it

Went out the window

Because in an instant

I became the world

To another being

The whole world

And now I recognize 

That this child

Is privileged

To have me

I will go to bat for this child

In ways I never would for myself

And it makes me question

Why

I stand up for her and realize

I should've loved myself this much

All along

The love I give to her is the love I always wanted

And didn't think I was worthy of 

But now

She reflects it back to me

Effortlessly

Effortlessly

Like I can turn dust into gold

And she makes me

Want to

Live up to the image she sees

I bore a love that was always inside me

And now it grows me

And teaches me

How I should've been loved

All along

And now I love myself

So that I can keep loving her

The way she deserves

Because she deserves the world

And all my wounds gather together

Showing me

They made me

This deep, expansive, experience of a human being

Flawed, anxious and wounded

But sensitive and wise and profoundly empathic

I read people

I know people

Better than I want to

And because of my daughter

I keep my distance

I focus on love and gratitude

And creating the life I want

The best possible life I can

For both of us

She inspires me

To explore the limits of possibility

Because I know

She's capable of anything

Which means

So am I