I was a broken person. It wasn’t his fault.
By the time it had all ended and I looked back on it, I’d realized that the worst moments of my life happened while we saw each other. I was a total jerk to him and, yeah, he was a jerk to me too.
It was a time in which I dated without self-confidence. A time where I was so focused on fixing my shitty life that I could hardly make room for him among the fires I was constantly trying to put out in my brain.
Now I get why I could never love him as I should have.
There’s this phrase RuPaul uses a lot:
“If you can’t love yourself, how the hell are you going to love somebody else?”
I personally love the quote. Some people hate it, but I’ve been hearing people talk about it all month.
Some people have, at least to me, have gotten it a little backward. Arguing that everyone is worthy of receiving love, even if they are broken. And I think that can absolutely be true too. Because that’s a whole different thing.
Loving a person and being loved by another person is like the sun and the moon. Both important. Both work off of each other. But they pull their own weight.
You do not have to love yourself first to find love. But to fully love another human being, you’re going to be giving. You’re going to be giving a fuck-ton, actually. Because when you are loving, you are putting that person before yourself. And if you’re going to be giving all of that, you want to be in the best position possible.
You want to be giving from your overflow.
I’ve had my energy drained like crazy from people who I loved, but who didn’t have the capacity to fully love me. I did that over and over until I was so drained I couldn’t love. I’d lost myself.
Loving yourself is not just liking yourself. It’s not just taking care of yourself either. It’s also knowing yourself. Because when you know yourself, you can see that person coming who is going to hurt you. You can understand how a person who is supposed to be loving you will act.
Don’t worry, they’re not off the hook either. Because when they love themselves, they can give from their overflow too. Which would be fucking rad if love was like iced coffee.
There’d be plenty for both of you.
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Originally published on P.S. I Love You
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