What is love?
I don’t know. But I did write my entire college essay on it.
When I turn to my blog posts, I struggle a lot. There’s certain things I can write about, sure, but often times there’s very few topics I feel I can comfortably write about for hundreds of words. Stardew Valley? Already done. Animal Crossing? Yep. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild? I’m ninety nine percent sure that was my last blog post (edit, I just checked, and yes, it was). So what else do I love?
I love to crochet, I do it all the time. To be honest, it’s a coping mechanism for a lot of my anxiety and stress. It helps a lot, and it is something productive to do with my hands. I would rather make a bunch of random things I never actually finish than bite my fingernails while watching a movie.
I love my dog, a good ol’ cookies and cream doggy we named Bandit. He’s almost always happy to see me, and likes to look out my window when people come and go from my house.
I adore my girlfriend, Eva, and I have already dedicated an entire blog post to her. But she taught me what it truly means to be loved. To be loved is so much more than the people that birthed you, or acquaintances in the hallways. To be loved is to be cherished, and wanted. To be accepted and belong.
I love myself. And I didn’t love myself for a really long time. I know that’s hard to say, and a lot of times people just won’t admit that. But I didn’t. I didn’t like my body, or my personality, and I felt no matter how hard I tried I just wouldn’t be enough for my mother or my father or myself. I was terrified of the future mainly because, to be entirely honest, I couldn’t envision a future for myself. Middle school kicked my ass, and it was really hard for me to figure out how I was gonna get through the next day.
And I don’t know what changed.
In all honesty, I didn’t change anything I did. I didn’t go on a diet or shave my head or revamp my room to be completely different. The room, my bedroom, that I am currently sitting in and writing this blog post in is nearly identical to the one I sat in at twelve, thirteen, and fourteen years old. The only physical difference is where my desk is.
So what changed?
…Maybe it was my point of view. Maybe it was the fact that I stopped caring what other people think. But is that really it? Is that truly what I did? I still care. I still worry that people won’t like me. I’m still nervous people won’t accept me or I’ll be too over the top or extra or loud or obnoxious.
My mother once called me ‘an asset, and not a liability.’ What kind of parent, what kind of person tells their kid they view them equal to a piece of property, or a nice car?
Maybe that’s what changed.
I stopped caring about what the other people, the ones that never cared or I felt never cared, said about me.
I started dressing the way I was most comfortable, and not the way my mother thought fit her ideologies.
I started behaving like my true self, instead of the way my mother wanted me to act.
I began to love myself, rather than forcing myself to be someone that only partially filled the unachievable expectations of another person.
What is love? To me? I think it’s being you. Authentically you. Not forcing yourself into a box you never really belonged in for someone else. Seeing someone as they are and accepting them for every flaw, every misunderstanding, every imperfection and still seeing their beauty. And it’s hard. I won’t pretend it’s easy, that would just be stupid. I understand the pain and the struggling you have to go through to get to that place. When it takes years and years to feel like there’s even some semblance of stability, sometimes it feels like it’ll never come. But it will. Maybe through another person, maybe through your favorite shirt, a perfect song, a book, a painting, a masterpiece where you see yourself reflected back to you in the most beautiful way. And eventually you can learn to love.
I really enjoyed reading your blog post. I found it admirable how you openly discussed your emotions and your journey of self-love. I certainly believe that one of the most important things in life is to like yourself. By doing so, one is significantly happier, and healthier in a variety of ways. To a certain extent, I believe that almost every individual dislikes themselves in certain moments. However, it is important to recognize that everyone has flaws, and everyone makes mistakes, even our loved ones, even ourselves. These flaws do not diminish our affection for our loved ones, and thus, our own flaws should not diminish our love for ourselves. Self growth is always important, however, one should not change their personality in order to meet the likings of others. Your post truly exemplified this point. Your journey of finding yourself and truly expressing your personality ultimately led you to become much happier. This highlights the importance of authenticity and how truly expressing yourself will always lead to freedom and happiness. While reading your post, I was able to reflect on my own self-perception as well. I had a similar journey in terms of self-acceptance and self-love. Thus, I truly believe it is important to live honestly and always wear your heart on your sleeve.
Meg, this was such a beautiful blog post, and it’s something I’ll think about for a while. I like how you explore the versatility of love–how it can not only take form in someone’s favorite shirt or painting but also when we are being loved by others. Sometimes, we think that love can only exist in certain forms, like familial love or friendship, but it can be so much more than that. We often miss the instances where it presents itself in a unique way. Sometimes, things about us change that we can’t explain, and these changes can shape the relationship we have with ourselves. It can also be difficult to accept when people might not love us back or appreciate us, but one of the first steps in loving ourselves is to be authentic because it’s impossible to meet everyone else’s expectations.
You mentioned that it’s hard to love ourselves, and I think that’s true because we don’t always have the best judgment of ourselves most of the time. We judge ourselves based on our personalities and appearance, but we are also made up of the things that we love. What we love reflects who we are, and I think that loving who we are attracts external love toward us as well.
Hey Meg, this is one of the best blog posts that I have ever read, and it is incredibly authentic and real. Your bravery in sharing out your story about learning to love yourself is very admirable and inspiring, and your writing style was introspective and supercharged with emotion. I “loved” it. Haha, little pun. When I read your post, I was reminded of a saying that I once heard that goes: “You can never truly love someone else until you first learn to love yourself.” I think that accepting yourself for who you are and embracing your uniqueness and personality is one of the most important things that you can do, but also one of the hardest. People will constantly say things to demean you and try to bring you down, and it’s really tough to tune that out. But like you discussed, I think that the key for me to do that was to come to terms with the fact that not every single person I meet is going to like me, and if they don’t then there’s nothing that I can or should try to do to change their opinion. Simply being me is enough. Thank you for sharing this post, I truly enjoyed reading it.