Love Yourself

For my entire life, I have searched for love. I have always felt what I was looking for was just out of my reach. Surely, if I just loved harder, communicated better, or found a "better" partner, I would find love returned to me as I needed it. When I have failed to tangibly grasp this intangible thing called "love"...I have crashed. I have believed at times I would die without it. I have stayed longer than I should have or given more than should have ever been expected to for fear that I had much more to lose leaving.

I've read CoDependent No More. Prayed endlessly. Gone to therapy. Meditated. Read more. Written. Cried. Exhausted myself...and slowly died inside constantly running after something I just could not ever quite seem to keep ahold of long enough to find security in.

Then, on a random night, at 27 years old, with no one around to sound the alarm on the greatest discovery of my life...I quietly, in one tiny moment in space and time, realized I found it...the love is in me. All these years I have spent dying to be loved, instead of finding the strength within to look at myself in the mirror and realize I am love. I deserve someone who sees the love in me. Who sees it shine inspite of my human frailty and fears. Who brings me back from my own self-condemnation to tell me how I'm none of the terrible things I may feel about myself. Even more than deserving someone that spectacular, I finally am beginning to see that I have to believe it about myself. I don't need others to affirm my giving spirit, my honest heart, my faithful friendship, or my pure intentions.

Maybe none of you can relate. Maybe you have always been blessed and healthy enough to only allow people in your life who see the goodness in you and ignite it deeper. That is not my story until now. My spirit, heart, friendship, and intentions have been beaten down in ways that are unspeakable, in ways that I hope to one day heal from completely. I have a long way to go in this journey called self-love...but just the taste of it, the empowerment of it, the wholeness in it, is keeping tears from flooding my eyes tonight. Finally...relief is coming. I never imagined it'd be in my own reflection staring back at me.