Collecting My Thoughts: To Love & Be Loved in Return
Thursday, December 9th, 2021, 6:41 PMWhen I pose a question to myself, generally, I come to my bearings on my own. Today I googled, "Is finding [romantic] love supposed to be hard?" I really thought I had my opinion about love set in stone, but I still find myself restless and curious. Anyway, I came across an answer to my question by someone on Quora.com. (Yup, where everyone's opinions run wild and free!) The writer said many things that resonated with me. Here's one of the things they wrote: "Just be kind. Don't talk shit about anyone, even your enemies. Anger and bitterness will be a big turn-off. Trust me. Be mature about people and treat them with humility and compassion. Someone special will see that someday." It's funny because I always felt that I was ridiculed for my sensitive soul growing up. Apparently, being sympathetic makes you emotional and irrational. So somewhere along the way, I convinced myself that being less than me was the best way to be. Wrong!
These days, I continue to wear my heart on my sleeve, ankle, wrist, etc. I feel deeply for those around me, and it takes a great deal of hurt for that love for someone to diminish. Even then, I don't think they ever genuinely leave my heart. I let people take little pieces of me, and nowadays, I've just gotten better at pretending that I don't. Nevertheless, I would rather be ailed from caring "too much" than from not caring at all. To put it plainly, I shouldn't be looking for someone to love me at all; instead, I should be looking for more people to love. If I had to guess, allowing yourself to care for and trust the people you meet in life and the people around you is just as scary as entering a romantic relationship.
I digress and digress just to say, “Look, dating is hard and I have no idea what I’m doing.” Whether it’s supposed to be, I’m still not sure. What I do know is that the people we hope for and those who genuinely exist are different. One is fiction, and one is flesh. I think we all desire, to some extent, for the people we want to fit into the puzzle of our lives, but sometimes they just don't, and that's nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to mourn. If I keep pushing and pushing on Love’s door, I will have created a blockade leaving no one able to enter. So, I will wait patiently if someone decides to pull. The world is vast and stubborn. Nevertheless, there will always be people around you to give your love to before and after your "true love" ever decides to come around.
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