Importance of Self-Care: "In Your Favorite Color," A Poem

This poem was inspired by long-distance and taking a leap of faith in order to take care of myself. Self-care is incredibly important, and sometimes doing the best thing for yourself means having to put your needs ahead of others, and if you're like me, that's one of the hardest things to do. However, making a decision that's good for you might hurt someone else, and if you want to preserve the friendship with that person, it's important to make sure they understand why you made the decision you did.

Originally written in green, in a notebook.

I Wrote This In Your Favorite Color

This last week has been pretty rough…

Social norms would dictate

that I lie

and assure you that “everything is fine.”

But this was my choice

So do I really have the right

to put on a show for you and the rest of the world

and pretend you don’t occupy my thoughts at night?

I want you to know,

and genuinely believe me when I say,

that this wasn’t something I did

on a whim.

I agonized over these doubts

for days and weeks,

where it was on my mind so much

I cried myself to sleep.

It was the hardest thing

I’ve ever had to do;

I guess that means I’ve lived a pretty charmed life,

but that didn’t make it any easier to leave you.

Is it really leaving though,

if we weren’t actually together?

I only got to see you once a month,

twice if we were lucky.

When you’re growing up they tell you

If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.

They tell you that if you have love

The distance won’t make a difference.

And it didn’t,

not really.

Because no matter how much time we spent apart,

I didn’t love you any less.

But it got so much harder

in between visits

just as happy

as I was when I was with you.

I needed to leave you,

and hurt you,

and myself,

before I started to resent you.

I swear,

I left because I thought

maybe

it was best.

To be quite honest,

I’m still not really sure if what I did

was best for the both of us,

or even just best for me.

There’s a good chance

I’ve royally screwed up

Something really wonderful…

But I’m still waiting to find out.

I feel like I’m stuck in limbo

waiting to see

if this initial grief will give way

to regret or relief.

I hope I figure it out soon though.