Sensitivity is beauty.

I have this gift and curse. Its my best friend and worst enemy. Meet Miss Sensitivity.

I can so clearly remember my mother saying, "Mary, you can't wear your heart on your sleeve." Or my brothers coaching me in how to respond to people in certain situations, "Mer, you can't be so sensitive, when someone says something just ignore it." I wish it were easier for me to NOT be so sensitive, but I can't seem to be that confident, brush it off, doesn't care king of person.

I think my insecurity of being so sensitive stems from a much deeper issue. I was extremely bullied when I was younger. This experience of being bulled has left deep scare that I constantly have to battle. I attempt often to remain in truth and remember that I am not that little girl who was misused, tricked, fooled into thinking she was nothing and insignificant. I think the memories hurt the most--the worst one is remembering that I use to ask the teacher often to use the restroom and I would just sit and suck my thumb just to bring me comfort, or at recess I would sit in the stall and hear all the girls giggling or the bouncing of the basketball hitting the outside courts. Or, in the classroom where I was so stuck in my anxiety that I couldn't learn and when I finally moved schools(yay!)I had a reading level of a 4th grader.(seriously)

It really just makes me sad and as I write this my eyes water because I was so misunderstood. I was an honest, kind-hearted girl and it wasn't valued. I am the middle child, and the middle children just go with the flow, so when we were in the car for hours running children around to sport practices because thats what we did or my lunch didn't get a little note, or that my sister was pregnant and my mother was pregnant that was normal to me. My family life was normal, but appeared to others as sad, abnormal, uncontrolled chaoticness.

Today, I am that same Mary, that same Miss Sensitive. Everything I do is in innocent joy and honesty because I love you friends. I love to make sure you feel valued because for a portion of my life I didn't know what that felt like in friendships. So if that means, i pick a flower and give it to you, write you a note, call you at 8am in the morning to go to breakfast even when I knew you were sleeping in because it was your day off. I thought about you. I wanted to laugh and rejoice with you. Its not desperate, its honesty. Because I love you. I love to love you friends.

I think I will always be sensitive because for so long my joy was stolen from me, innocence was not appreciated, and the desire of friendship was something I longed for, for so long. But this is just a layer of beauty that is me. Sensitivity is beautiful.