You and I both don’t know what’s coming when we meet. At some point in the future, I just might be in love with someone like you. To be perfectly candid, I could fall in love with many people – falling as in the motion of descending into passion and infatuation – but being in love is different.
Loving you would be the joyful awareness that you are part of my life, making me want to do things for you and share things with you.
Loving you would be action-driven and present-oriented. Unlike falling in love, where I let myself be swept away with fleeting emotions, being in love with you is a deliberate decision.
I can confidently say this because I had to unlearn and relearn what it means to love myself. Soon, you would know that my parents weren’t the best teachers of love, and my life’s genre is not a fairy tale. It could be a comedy, hoping you would laugh with me when I tell you my stories, but it is also a big mystery. There aren’t a lot of good pieces of evidence and justice.
This means that love was already misconstrued, and most of the time, I was set up to be a people pleaser, a doormat, and a highly sensitive person.
That sounds like a recipe for disaster, right?
I became aware of how exhausting this “role” I was put in and how it affected my relationships with others.
I also realized that misconstrued love breeds self-hatred. Two years ago, I thought I was a monster. It was like my brain shut down parts of it where it knew my situation worsened because of wicked people. But no, I thought I was the wicked one because they blamed me over and over again. They blamed me, and they loved me. But I… love them too, so I’m a bad person.
However, one gloomy summer day, I realized I had hit rock bottom. The toxic cycle of pleasing others to be loved and being incapable of loving myself back needed to stop. I pictured the fights we would have if I didn’t heal from my traumas. In contrast, I pictured the lovely days ahead when I healed.
I imagined the day we would meet and am in a much better place. When my heart is open to receive and give love, you’ll be there in a room, corner, or across from me.
How would I get to that point in the future? The answer: Start unlearning and relearning self-love.
It is not selfish but life-affirming.
It is not isolation but introspection.
It is not being dramatic but being true to myself.
So my love, you and I both don’t know what’s coming when we meet. At some point in the future, I have loved myself enough to love you, which means being a complete individual who is joyfully aware of being with you.
Thank you for reading 💜
This is my buzzer beater for Hive PH’s Dear Love contest. I hope you guys liked it! First blog contest, whoop whoop! 😍