SOCIETY,OR should I say life grooms us to fixate on one facet of love. I hope I’m not misunderstood, I’m a romantic at heart; I love love in all imaginable ways, seeing it, giving it, receiving it. The romantic type that is. It is indeed a magical thing.
As little girls growing up listening to fairytales, we begin to dream of prince charming, the older we grow he evolves into the perfect guy in all the chick flicks and rom coms we watch with our girlfriends. We play dress up in tutu skirts and tiaras, playing house and imulating a love we perceive but don’t quite understand as yet.
I have so many things I’d like to say in this post. I’d love to highlight the eternal impact of maternal and paternal love. I’d like to show you the enchanting power of a love between true and real friends. I would like to talk about the boundless love between siblings and the depth of love between a mother and a child. All these being things I’ve known and felt first hand. There is truly nothing in life greater than loving and being loved in return. I dare say it’s the building block of life. Life without love is not worth the living. I honestly have never come across someone who has never been loved.
However let me not be this person. Today is about romance, it’s about this kind of love, why turn a blind eye, right?
I’m an 80’s baby…you will often find some men from my generation saying in one form or another that all the good women died out after their mothers’ generation. Or you will hear some women my age bashing men and calling them … let’s stick to dogs.
Here’s what I’ve come to observe about today and the romantic love narration – most, if not all of us are so very broken it’s unbelievable. As broken as we are, we are hard set on ignoring this truth, neglecting our own hearts in pursuit of another person’s heart which, if it was not broken before we arrived, we proceed to initiate into the club of shattered hearts. We never take time to sit and mend our broken hearts. We live in a world where most of what we do must be seen. We want to be seen with someone, because God forbid we be single, I MEAN look at us! We are slaying, who wouldn’t want to be with us?
Do you want to be with you? Can you honestly introspect and come out claiming that you are so awesome a person – ego and bullshit aside – that anyone who would want to be a part of your life would have struck blessing and not luck?
We hop around from one relationship to the next and sometimes carry out the next relationship even before the current one is over. This I am afraid, even if I do not have reference, is not normal. I guess there comes a point in life, they call it growing up, I like to think of it as finally figuring out your self worth, where childish games, fame, ego, pride and the need to be relevant are all trumped by self love.
At some point after we are done hurting and hurting others we admit that there is no life without love and we begin to define the kind of love we want, and ever so often that love is not a game, it’s a life.
To love right, you have to start with yourself. Heal your scars, no matter where they may emminate from (failed relationships, tough upbringing, painful family set ups, witnessing heartbreak and pain for too long), no one will do this for you. Once you’ve listed all your wounds, found their source, confronted them, claimed them as yours without letting them define or hinder you, the next task is to love yourself. Love yourself so deeply that you are not afraid to be alone, and at the same time you are not scared to admit that you desire a lifetime companionship with a love that will sweep you off your feet and never let them touch the ground again. However if that love comes or if it doesn’t, vow that you will stay falling in love with yourself.
Lastly, never ever second guess your worth – if something doesn’t feel right for you, if it’s not up to your standards, if it makes you feel uncomfortable or insufficient, then that thing is not for you, no matter how far deep you are. Love is not a prison, in fact it is an exhilarating flight that keeps soaring higher with no landing in sight. If it doesn’t reek of freedom, take a step back and ask yourself if staying is actually loving yourself.
Happy Valentines Day
You deserve a faithful, unwavering, undying love.
But first, it starts with you.
xoxo