I realized today that in the last year alone, I've come further than I ever thought I would.

I remember a time not so long ago when I hated everything about myself from the way I looked to the way I thought. The ways I felt were always so suffocating and I was so convinced there was no such thing as "happiness", not for me.

I was so convinced I didn't deserve to feel better. That I was "unworthy" of so much as a shred of positivity. I thought I would never feel important.

I thought I was ugly and unlovable in every sense.

I was wrong.

In the past few months, everything I've ever thought about myself has been turned on it's head. The parts of me that I thought were unsightly and vile were exposed to kindness and care.

In ways I never thought I could, I've come to feel human. I've come to feel loved.

On skin that once bristled at the slightest hint of contact - my skin, that I once looked on with such intense hatred, disgust, and disdain - a garden has bloomed.

Never underestimate what a little bit of kindness - a little bit of love - can do to a person.

"In order to receive any kind of real love, you have to keep your heart open and be willing to give it out yourself. It brings in the right kinds of people and sometimes you can help the ones who are having a bad day along the way."

I had a really good night with my boyfriend last night.

Seeing him is always nice, but I'm feeling especially good right now.

I've really never felt so close to someone before and I've never been treated so well before in my life.

You know that feeling you get where you're just so happy that you kind of worry that one day you'll wake up and find that none of it was ever real and it was all just a dream? I've felt a lot like that since things initially turned romantic.

Like perhaps one day I'll wake up and find that we had never actually talked to each other in the first place.

But this is all real. More real than anything I've ever experienced and in the best ways I could imagine.

I've gained something I'm terrified of losing, and while in the past, this thought would have consumed me entirely to the point of not being able to enjoy myself, I've found myself being more present with him than I ever have been with anyone else.

It may sound weird, but for the first time in what has been a good portion of my whole life, I've been made to feel more like a human than a monster unworthy of kindness, compassion, and love.

And I am cherishing that feeling.

I'm feeling kind of down again lately and I'm not entirely sure why.

My self-esteem seems like it's been plummeting again. I'm kind of feeling like maybe I'm messing up a lot and doing everything wrong again. Like maybe I have no real worth.

They also extended the time our closing store is going to be open by a couple of weeks and I'm kind of upset about it. So many older people say things like, "You guys are closing because of Amazon and online shopping!"

If that were the case, we would have closed sometime in about 2020-2022. So many people (especially the older ones) are so quick to blame the internet without even stopping to think that maybe some companies go out of business due to terrible business practices.

Either way, this company has done a terrible job communicating with it's workers since we started the closing process. I don't even know when my last day as an employee there will be.

I just want things to improve.