I’ve long wanted to be better at accepting help, better at admitting weakness, better at trusting that people love me not for what I can do but just because they do. It would have been lovely to learn those things on my own terms, when I wanted to, the way I wanted to. But we never grow until the pain level gets high enough. Being so sick for so long was a crash course, not one I would have chosen, not one I handled well, certainly. It was a painful education, but one I needed, one that forced me to embrace the risky but deeply beautiful belief that love isn’t something you prove or earn, but
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