Day 2: My Bestie

Today's challenge was to talk about my "best love and what they mean/meant to me". Lots of possibilities rumbled through my head on this one. Who do I talk about? My mom as my first bestie or my dude as my love for life? Then I thought...my best love is and will always be......ME!

It took a long time for me to realize that the best love that I have received (more of this later in my life) has been from me. I'm a people pleaser - less now than before (hence the tragedy of my first love experience). I longed to be loved, liked, appreciated, valued and being someone that mattered to someone - I'll dig a little deeper on this a bit later in the month. Anyway, I got to a point somewhere along my life's journey to not care about getting absolution from others but attaining that level of bliss from myself. I will always value others in my life and their opinion but it doesn't define me and how I value my self worth. I do that. I set the bar for who I am as an individual - flaws and all. Love me for the "me" that I am at the moment as I am a work-in-progress.

Like many people you go through this downward spiral of self hatred, perfection seeking and desperate longing to be loved. You forget that the external approval is not as important as accepting and loving who you are unconditionally. This is a huge moment for me to say that I LOVE me as I am. I lived most of my life feeling like I always came up short by being one of the undesirables (not attractive enough, too tall, too skinny, too imperfect, not smart enough, etc.). I was my worst enemy. I destroyed myself without the help of bullies b/c of my low self-esteem. With the fog of negativity, I couldn't see the goodness that resided in me.

Nowadays I see "me" and love her. She is a beautiful woman and strong in her resolve. She is smart, multi-talented and true to who she is (imperfections included). I love her for being my rock! When all else fails whether it be people around her or goals, she will overcome - dust off and proceed. I love this!

For her to come from self deprecating the woman in her at every given moment to, on many occasions, looking herself in the mirror recognizing her beauty (internally and externally), this shows her growth and strength! For that, she is my best friend...best face of love....best love period.

Day 1: First LoveACHE

Wow! This brings me back to a lapse of better judgment in an act of desperation – wanting so bad to know what love felt like that was different from the love that I received from my family.

At this point of my life, I didn't know what it was like to be loved by someone intimately, spiritually and completely for all of my flaws, pluses, minuses, etc. I needed and wanted to experience this. So I did something totally outside of my character and did an online dating service to find my perfect mate. That was wrong step number one. Now, looking back the warning signs were there - my prospective mate chatted online when it suited him, he was always busy and I made the adjustments to best fit his schedule. One day, we finally met and we got physical instantly which was not part of my plan but perhaps his. We didn't go all the way but it was close. I took it slow but he was super-fast. I was so nice, meager and ready to please and on the other hand he was rough, possessive and demanding. I continually tolerated his behavior and allowed myself to be mistreated by him because after all this was supposed to be my first love experience.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to blame my broken heart on this dude. That gives him way too much responsibility and power that he didn’t have over my heart. I allowed myself to be exploited and degraded because I sought to be loved and appreciated so much that I couldn’t see that this relationship was dangerous to my health. I was a bit delusional throughout all of this b/c I clung onto his spurts of gentleman-like behavior not focusing on his overall disrespect towards me. The inevitable failure of this relationship was both of our faults but I take the blame for not ending this bad relationship much sooner.

Fast forward to the present, after some serious soul searching and learning to love myself first, I’ve defined my ideal face of love – someone who is loving unconditionally, nurturing of my growth, caring of my needs/wants/desires, trustworthy, doesn’t take my existence for granted and sees us as a team in the present (and possibly the future).

The 30 Days of Love....

Inspired by a friend's challenge blog posts....I created this blog (hey why not?!) to discuss my perspective of love, loving and being loved. For the next 30 days, I will post a blog on the daily - Stay Tuned!!

Peace & Love