“Who taught you to hate yourself?” is perhaps the single most revolutionary sentence I have ever read, and I have read a lot in my lifetime.
Life is hard for most, if not absolutely all, of us. As a result, I don’t think there’s nothing wrong with accepting another person’s love, essentially their offer to lighten our burden, even if only momentarily. There is no weakness in being open to healthy and sincere affection from another. Most of what we will struggle with in life will be out of our hands, and so our individual journeys will be tough. If another person wants to give you the gift of a love that is kind and thoughtful, why reject it?
I like to think of my heart as an open door, maybe even a revolving door. Throughout the years, I have loved and I’ve lost, not unlike pretty much every other person on this planet. What has me swimming upstream is that I don’t seal myself off from how I feel about people because of things that may have happened in the past. Where is the sense in punishing future loves for cruelty experienced in the past, and at the hands of another?
It’s not only rude, but also selfish.
Often times, loving another person is what inspires some of us to be the best we can be. There are people in my life I will forever love because to me, they are the earliest memories I have of myself. In them, I see them person I hope to be, the woman I try to be. To lose them would be to lose myself, and so I keep them close.
With love like that out there, it can be said that there really is absolutely nothing brave, poetic, artistic, or even tortured about rejecting healthy and understanding love. The kind of love that helps us get out of bed in the morning, helps up get through pained nights, and makes us cry during the better moments because it endured and it is still there, shared by two people who chose to care.
Who you are now, who you see in the mirror today, that’s who you are. Maybe you the yourself, but just accept that person, and realize that you are more than yet another a reflection that walks past you on every shiny surface you pass. Don’t feel shame about who you were or who you are because that’s pointless. We allow people to be mean to us on a daily basis, accepting it as fact and part of life. Why not do the same with love?
It’s not up to you to decide on behalf of someone else whether or not you are worth their affection. That is something that it simply not your war to fight, and certainly not yours to lose. Let yourself be loved, and maybe someday as a result of that, you’ll be able to repay the kindness with love all your own.