Not to be a downer but if i had to, at 12 years old, listen to my mother tell me all the different ways men would want to hurt my body, and how i might prevent that, then i really feel like teenage boys can handle a conversation with their parents that starts “let’s talk about consent”
As I wake up and scroll through tumblr each morning, nearly every post is about romantic love between two people. This concept resounds throughout literature and every top Billboard 100 hit on the radio. Romantic love isn’t the only kind of love. Our society emphasizes it’s glory and causes us to fantasize about a fairy tale idyllic version of romantic love. It’s time to change.
It’s time to do some soul searching. It’s time to rediscover myself. It’s time to fall in love with myself again. Somewhere along the bumpy road filled with potholes called 2015, I lost my confidence. I lost my edge and the feeling of simultaneous poise and swagger. It’s time to stop relying on other people to fix me and to want me. It’s time to reinvent the definition of “love.”
Here’s to 2016 and falling in loving with myself. Here’s to 2016 and getting to know myself as well as I would a potential romantic partner. Here’s to 2016 and soul searching for a new definition of “self-love.”
As the end of 2016 is nearing I’ve been quite reflective and I wanted to post an update to the original post. 2016 has been one of the most turbulent, up and down years of my life with countless highs, lows, peaks, and valleys. I did the exact opposite of my advice and I put everything I had into another person. So much so that I lost myself. One night, after a horrible fight, I knew I was only going to continue to lose myself until I got out.
I rebuilt myself. I learned to love myself. I fell more in love with myself than ever before and I became okay with being alone. I embrace alone time and I embrace my feelings. I found myself again and I learned to love myself first, for I am mine before I am anyone else’s.
So I found a girl from a past chapter of my life. At that time, my eyes were too hazy from the damage inflicted by someone else to appreciate her. But she loves coffee as much as I do and all the right music and when she talks she sounds like a protagonist from a bestselling novel. She is my past, present, and future.
I finished with all A’s and Deans List and I will graduating with honors in my department. I got into eight law schools, many with 90k+ scholarships. I go to the gym everyday and I eat right; I can’t remember the last time I was sick. Mentally, physically, and emotionally I am ending 2016 healthy because I finally took the time to learn self-love.
