Love Is.

There used to be a cross stitch that hung in my bedroom growing up.

It was on the wall across from my bed and I glanced at its words every night.

Over time, I learned to memorize its lines, script often lulling me to sleep. It became ingrained in my heart, yet for the longest time, I never knew its meaning.

Love, it was about love.

Loooooove.

And we find ourselves here on the most popular day of it.

Having always been a single lady on this amorous holiday, I often write about the significance of self-love.

Makes sense right? Normally, this is where I’d dive right in; but this year, I find myself wrestling with the particular topic.

Specifically, how one can write about loving who they are when in all honesty, they don’t feel worthy of it.

Even when all evidence is unsupportive of that claim, even with love surrounding and pouring in from all sides by family, friends, cat, I nonetheless find myself longing for the love I crave most: romance.

It’s the one love I’ve never had.

I’ve tried, don’t get me wrong. Oh man how I’ve tried.

See, once uPUN a time, there once roamed this sweet and courageous woman eager to experience the charm and whimsy of being in love (not to mention the pleasures of intimacy).

*wink wink

Naively entering the dating world in her high heels and pom pom sweaters, this woman of great sentiment put herself out there in the hopes of finding her Prince Charming.

She was a hopeless romantic, after all.

Unfortunately, the dating world wasn’t as kind to her as she had imagined, and she found that the more she ventured down that path, the more heartbreak she experienced. As one man after the other quietly rejected and turned her away, the more she became convinced that something was wrong with her. She started to believe that all of the quirks and qualities that made her who she was were somehow deterring men from staying to get to know her better.

It’s like the cover intrigued them and certain chapters piqued their interest, but no man was willing to take the time to read and appreciate her story.

When things didn’t work out the way she had hoped with whomever “prince” she was seeing, she blamed and lambasted herself, an unhealthy coping strategy that only added to her pain. She became absorbed with feelings of insufficiency and insecurity, and instead of taking the experience for what it was and learning from the mistakes that were made, she developed this emotional tunnel vision where she foolishly asked herself time and time again, “What’s wrong with me?”

Slowly, over time, she let it chip away at her self-esteem. She absorbed the heartbreak as a definition of who she was and the striking shell of this once lively woman now felt broken, flawed, insecure, and more alone than ever before.

In twisted attempts at proving herself worthy of this so called “love”, she exacerbated the problem further by becoming even more determined to find someone who would embrace who she was. The princess became stubborn and unrelenting in her efforts to feel some sort of validation that she was wanted, searching desperately for a guy to make her feel worthy of being loved.

Unfortunately, she was looking for love in all the wrong men.

Allllllll the wrong men.

Because where she should have been looking for this sense of purpose and worth was within.

Which brings us, finally, to our topic of self-love.

Love. What an enchanting enigma.

I’m finding that the journey of love, in its many shapes and forms, is not how it looks in the movies. Nor is it portrayed the same as a favorite romantic novel.

But I knew that, didn’t I?

Perhaps not.

Love is constant, and it requires work and commitment. Strenuous behind the scenes labor that the movies sometimes neglect to show in their “happily ever afters.”

But love also needs other things: like compassion, kindness, support, acceptance, forgiveness, and faith in order for any relationship to survive.

All of which this princess neglected within. And when she should’ve been nurturing and growing this precious love of hers, she was ridiculously looking for someone else to give it to her.

It became a vicious cycle then, thirsting after this validation from others and clutching the nourishment in her very own hands.

For years, the princess carried this burden of self-inflicted shame for her seemingly “bad luck” with men. She had developed this wicked habit of chastising and blaming herself when the guy didn’t like her back and was cruelly punished by her own thoughts of inferiority.

It was unnecessary self-harm and one day, a fervent reaction to one of her latest heartbreaks left her emotionally debilitated, and she knew that something was profoundly wrong. The pain she felt was unusually extreme and she discovered that her self-love was so depleted that she didn’t even have the strength and compassion from within to help get her through.

And so something changed. After some intimate self-reflection and a brave and honest look within, she finally realized that a lot of the pain and suffering that had scarred her for so long was because of this self-punishment and these unforgiving thoughts that she wasn’t good enough. And she knew that if she didn’t start forgiving herself, if she didn’t start having compassion for the mistakes she had made, she would forever continue down this unhealthy path.

If she couldn’t confront, be present with, and react to her suffering in a caring manner, she would never grow, and she could never heal.

So she bravely faced it, with pen hitting paper as words came tumbling out.

Expressions of compassion, comfort, kindness, and forgiveness raced across her tear stained pages and when waves of insecurity and feelings of unworthiness surfaced, she acknowledged their presence and let them go.

The princess started to save herself, and she’s learning how to love again.

Word by kind word.

Touch by heavenly touch.

Grace by pure grace.

How we love ourselves is how we teach others to love us, so how could she expect to find this profound love if she neglected the one that mattered most? How could she be something for someone else if she couldn’t be something for herself?

if I am the longest relationship

of my life

isn’t it time to

nurture intimacy

and love

with the person

I lie in bed with each night.

-rupi kaur

And on the one day of the year where love is expressed in its infinite forms, the princess found the courage to begin the process of healing from her biggest heartbreak: the one she created.

So she’s giving herself time.

Time to heal.

Time to grow.

Time to learn.

Time to change.

Time to love herself again, learning to celebrate and accept the flaws that make up the magnificent queen she’s becoming.

She’s practicing acts of kindness and forgiveness, giving herself grace for her blunders past. She’s recognizing that she’s only human and she’s thanking her mistakes for teaching her and allowing her the opportunity to grow. And she’s proud of how brave she is for admitting the struggle and for the courage to confess that she’s been hurting.

One day, she realized she could not outrun her shadow

She brought it in front of her where she could see it

“Why are you so dark?” she asked

Her shadow replied,

“Darkness is the truth you avoid and

It yearns for the light.”

Though it was painful to stand

In front of a silhouette of her unhealed pieces

She realized it was merely a part of her

That she had not made peace with

As she held herself in the love of her own arms

Her shadow became a part of her, like

The dusk of the setting sun melting into the night sky

-Allie Michelle

In a world so haunted with the belief that we are not worthy unless we are wanted, she’s starting to accept that we are worthy exactly as we are: imperfect but divinely complex beings learning how to love.

And so I ask: what is the meaning of love?

I looked to those around me, family and friends who meant that very thing in my life.

What is love? Love is:

Rewarding. Complicated. Hard as Hell, but fulfilling. Unconditional. Pasta. A many splendored thing.

But for me, love is best described on the cross stitch from 1 Corinthians 13 that I have finally learned the true meaning of:

Love is patient and kind… is not jealous or boastful… arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful… does not rejoice at wrong… love bears all things, believes all things, endures all things. Love never ends…

Thank you Tinei McCaughey for capturing my vision and making me feel beautiful in my skin.

https://tineimccaugheyphotography.mypixieset.com/about/