It’s There
by Jason Tomlinson

If you bar graphed the statements of my first eleven years
you would notice one sentence raised up higher
you can probably guess what it is if you understand one thing
from the time I was born until I was a sixth grader
I lived in nine different cities on both sides of the 48 and 1 in the Pacific Ocean
it’s safe to say my communication was monopolized by introductions
I was the new kid six times in elementary school
and not even now have I grasped the fullness of the impact of growing up that way
I just know that my diverse experience created exceptionalities which created strengths which created weaknesses which created me
so now I come to you with more than mere introductions
somewhere along the way I learned something better
I learned that people are less interested in who I am but much more in themselves
everyone is fighting a hard battle
and so many don’t know who they are
I travel with reminders to thwart forgetfulness
because the only thing that’s worse than believing you’re bad is not believing you’re good
I’m here to tell you that you’re good because that is how you were made
you are good regardless of what you’ve done
how you appear or what you feel
the goodness in you wasn’t put there by you so getting rid of it is not something you can do
I can tell you that it may be buried deep and on some level it may not have come out in a long time
but it’s there
oh is it ever