I often think about love – from family to friends to the random people I went to school with, I see a lot of people happy and in love and I wonder if that will ever be the case for me. Single seems to be a constant status in my own life, my only companion being the fictional world of books and television shows.

I’ve long since accepted the single life – the days of pining after and crushing on people in hopes that they would also look my way are now confined to my teenage years and I honestly don’t really miss the awkwardness of flirting and the anxiety of liking someone.But I do wonder if I’m truly okay with a spinster life and if the desire for more is actually mine or a societal pressure to have a significant other.

On top of all that, I also wonder if I’m actually ever worthy of being loved and if I’ll ever be allowed to be happy. Being fat and non binary has me constantly wondering if anyone could actually love me. I’ve internalized the messages society sends out about fat people – that we’d be lucky to find love, that we’re not supposed to be happy with our lives, that we’re not supposed to like anything about ourselves.

Between depression, society, and my family, there’s no part of my own life that’s not filled with self doubt and a whole lot of hate. Going to the gym is stressful not only because I feel judged and watched but also because it reminds me of the time in my life when I was so obsessive about weight loss and attempted to achieve it by any means necessary.

The past couple weeks have been especially hard for some unknown reason and I’ve been thinking about how if I hate myself this much, how will anyone ever really love me? A lot of my own writing has been the cliche of wondering who I am and I guess I have a bit of a journey to really figure that out.