Love and relationships have been on my mind a lot lately. I think it is mostly because of the time of year and that so many women I know are pregnant. I have been kicking things around in my head for awhile now, so, of course, I am going to over share about them here.
The most surprising realization I have had was: all you need to get love and acceptance is be willing to love and accept. Simple. Not everyone will love you, and not everyone will accept you, but people will care about you and want to be in your life.
Every living human being wants love and acceptance. It gets all mucked up in how we handle that desire, but once you realize you are worthy of love and acceptance and you decide you will love people in your life, flaws and all, then you will find it.
Some people will never accept you or love you, but you can’t help that. I used to try so hard to change myself to be more acceptable to people in my life, but I always came up short, and I was never going to be good enough. Somewhere, I don’t know where, I found people who I didn’t need to pretend with.
This is who I am. I am deeply flawed, weird, crazy, fat, socially awkward, and I will almost always, without fail, say the wrong thing at the wrong time. I am also funny, loyal, smart, honest, loving, and I find joy in making people I care about happy. If you love me and accept me, I will love you and accept you, almost without exception. (Okay, I do have an issue with people who are intentionally mean, hurtful, rude, or abusive. Aside from that, though, almost without exception.)
I am worthy of love and friendship.
I am also still deeply damaged and I am trying to figure it out how to fix me.
I don’t understand how I can see how worthy I am of friendship, but I still really don’t feel worthy of romantic love. Part of me cannot believe that someday someone fantastic will love me like I see in so many couples around me.
I believe in deep, lasting love. I have seen so much of it in my life. I believe some people are meant to be together for the rest of their lives, if they are willing to put the work into it. I believe men can fall so madly in love with a woman that they form a pair bond so tight that are no longer whole without that other person. I just have a hard time believing that someone will fall for me like that.
Random interruption from a baby corgi
There is a reason I get into the relationships I do and why I let men I have romantic interest treat me the way I do. It is my self worth issues. I know this. I could blame it on a million things, from modern media, human nature, or being told at thirteen that I am not the type of person someone will want to sleep with because of my looks, but the truth is the reason isn’t important.
I need to look honestly at the broken parts. I need to poke at them and try to heal them. I need to admit things that people who care about me know. I have serious self-worth issues that I need to work on before I can be happy with someone else. It would be fantastic if some man could swoop in and fix me, but I am done waiting for someone else. I have to figure out how to fix me, no one else can.
I have to finish my book for my own self worth. I need to realize all of those flaws I see are not greater than the good things about me. I have to ask for what I want and to hold out for what I need. I need to learn that I could lose weight, publish books, become famous, learn social graces, but it will never be enough if I can’t accept that anyone would be lucky to have my love. I need to think I am good enough if I ever want a man to treat me like I am good enough. Otherwise, I will always need to be skinner, funnier, more successful, just different than what I am.
I need to make those crazy lady post it notes:
I am deeply flawed and broken, but I am beautiful.
I deserve to be loved like I love.
Anything else is a bunch of bullshit.
Geeks a Geeking