On confusing being chosen with being worthy
I have spent years becoming competent at the kinds of things that can be measured.
I show up to work. I meet deadlines. I track my debt in spreadsheets down to the dollar. I keep calendars straight. I sign permission slips. I answer emails. I make doctor’s appointments. I plan for the future like it’s a second job.
I spent a long time thinking competence would fix insecurity. That if I became responsible enough, productive enough, dependable enough, I would eventually feel solid underneath all of it.
But I’m realizing competence and self-worth are not the same thing.
For most of my life, I have based my worth on what men think of me.
Not in some dramatic way. More like a system I never questioned.
If I was wanted, I was okay.
If I was chosen, I felt secure.
If a relationship felt stable, I felt stable.
It started when I was a painfully shy, overweight teenager who was rarely noticed. I remember what it felt like to move through hallways invisible. So when attention finally came, it didn’t feel casual. It felt like oxygen. Like proof that I was visible. Proof that I mattered.
Somewhere along the way, my brain started linking attention with worth. Being wanted meant being valuable.
I never fully updated that belief system. Instead, I built competence around it.
I became the person who tracks everything. The person who anticipates problems before they happen. The person who makes plans, sets goals, pays things down, rebuilds, adjusts.
I can manage logistics.
I can navigate court paperwork.
I can budget for a future house I don’t own yet.
I can rebuild a blog from scratch and hit publish again after years of silence.
But underneath all of that competence, the old pattern was still there. I was still looking to other people to define my value.
I let being chosen determine whether I felt like enough.
I let relationship stability determine whether I felt steady.
A shift in tone could undo my entire day. An unanswered message could spiral into doubt. A little distance could feel much bigger than it actually was.
I could be confident at work by 10 am and questioning myself by 3... all because of something small, something relational, something that shouldn’t have carried that much weight.
And when that stability shifts, or disappears, I feel it in my bones. Not just as disappointment. As destabilization.
That’s the part I’m finally seeing.
I don’t actually lack value. What I lack is an internal sense of worth that exists independently from romantic validation. I’ve just never fully learned how to feel it without someone else reflecting it back to me.
I'm realizing now that sometimes we don’t outgrow our insecurities. We just build very functional lives around them.
We get degrees. We raise children. We hold jobs. We become dependable. But part of us is still waiting to be chosen before we decide we are worthy.
At 37, I am learning — for the first time — to separate those things.
To let relationships be something I desire, not something I require to feel solid.
To believe I am valuable even on the days no one is pursuing me. Even when I am in-between. Even when I am rebuilding.
I don’t have this mastered. I’m not writing this from the finish line. I’m writing it from the middle.
But for the first time, I can see the pattern.
And I don’t want my worth living in someone else’s hands anymore. I want it in mine.
