fall back in love with myself.

this isn’t a grand gesture letter to myself, but it does mean something to me. and maybe it will find its reader.

fall back in love with myself.

that’s what i whispered to myself this morning, isn’t it? maybe not with words, but with my breath. with the way i gazed in the mirror and allowed a pause in my thoughts. the sun lighting my left eye like honey, charging my face with warmth.

i’ve spent so many seasons at the mirror. either throwing my curls up in a quick bun after patting my olive face dry, unfazed by myself, or staring carefully as i perfected my thick persian brows, dragging peach blush up my cheekbones, wiring myself up for the day’s film set.

but in this moment, as i hand write with my favorite pen in my favorite journal, i feel like sitting with myself as my own friend. someone worth knowing. to ask myself how i’m doing. not as a prelude to productivity, but as an act of devotion. as love.

returning to the small things that make me feel alive. ceremonial cacao draped into warm matcha, the way my body tingles in the breeze after a sweat, the quiet of early mornings that make me feel like i run the world.

i fall back in love with myself when i remember that my life is a garden to be tended. that i have been in devotion to her for 33 years. that she is vibrant, a little wild, full of seasons. that i am a soul who knows how to love. my daughter’s curiosity, my husband’s purity.

and that sometimes, when i catch my reflection in the bedroom mirror, i feel proud. and that feels powerful.

i fall back in love with myself when i look at myself through the lens of what wants to be cherished. i am deserving of being cherished.

it’s almost radical how i can now turn toward myself with tenderness instead of critique. no longer demanding self improvement, but gently loving myself into it.

laying here, chest down, cozy on my couch. i smile as i write this.

it feel like a warm hug. to hold my own hand without needing a reason. to trace my edges with grace instead of shame. to let my loneliness be witnessed, not absorbed. no longer racing to be understood by others.

this is the love i’ve always wanted for myself. this level of intimacy with my own being. the freedom of feeling at home in my body. the peace.

and so i write this as a promise to myself.

to remember, again and again and again, to fall in love with the magic that is me.

not because i’ve earned it. not because someone else has finally seen it. but because i am alive. beautiful skin, warm flesh. and i am worth being loved by me. not someday. not once i’ve done more. but now. with my blueberry stained shirt, and a matcha that has now cooled. in my fragility and my fire.

<3 to whomever may be reading this, if you forget everything else today, remember this: you are someone worth coming home to.

and perhaps the great love of your life is the one waiting for you in the mirror.

i am inhabited. i am moving. i am lit from within.

x,
cibelle