Positive feedback

People who tell you to 'get over it' and 'learn to love yourself' don't realize how much other people's words and feelings can matter when you've been alone and insecure all your life. When your self-love comes from your service to others, it's difficult to explain to people who don't think the same way, since so many of us have been molded to believe that "the first person you should care about is yourself".

And when I find a reason to be more secure in myself, the unseen difficulty is that I have to hold myself back from dumping all my years of inadequacy and loneliness on her so that, for once, just once, I can feel human.

But that's not exactly what this is about.

This is about simple pleasures, and consent, and confidence.

She gave me her consent to make her happy, and by God, I did make her happy. Her happiness and her trust makes me more content than anything else - now I have the solid confidence to say I know what makes me happy in life, and it is simultaneously the most and the least selfish thing in the world.

But maybe I'm needlessly abstract. That's what overthinking does to you.

It's nice to know I'm good with my hands. At least some part of me is good for something greater than myself.