Learning to love myself

What I Wish I Knew Before Gastric Bypass Surgery Lying in that hospital bed, pain tearing through me, I regretted every life choice that brought me there. Every single one. It wasn’t just the surgery. It was the first time I ever turned to food for comfort . The nights I stuffed my emotions down with whatever I could find in the fridge. The years I spent hating my body, and the years I spent ignoring it. One step after another—each decision, each moment of silence, each time I didn’t ask for help—led me here. And then came the depression . Nobody talks about how after the surgery, when your body is healing and your old coping mechanisms are gone, the sadness creeps in. Loud and unrelenting. You can’t eat your way through it anymore, and sometimes it feels like there's nothing left to hold onto. I wish someone had told me that it’s not just a physical transformation . It’s an emotional unraveling . A reckoning . And still… I’m here. Regret and all. Healing, one painful t...

When Love Is Served: Navigating Acts of Service in My Family My love language has always been acts of service. I’ve grown up showing love through caring actions—whether it was babysitting my younger siblings or helping out at every family gathering. Yet, over the years, I’ve also felt that my caring nature has sometimes been taken for granted. A Childhood of Service At around 12 years old, I became the family’s unofficial babysitter. I wasn’t in it for the pay—it wasn’t much anyway. I did it because it felt natural to help out, to be there for my family. It was my way of expressing love, even if that sometimes meant putting others’ needs before my own. An Easter to Remember One particular memory still sticks with me. When I was about 15 or 16, my grandmother and aunt put together to buy outfits for all my siblings for Easter. Beforehand, my grandmother told me there wouldn’t be anything for me. She asked if I was okay with that, and I told her I was because my heart was full just...