I learned in school that it is hard to care about someone when they don’t care about themselves. It’s draining and hurtful because you spend nights and hours thinking about ways to help, ways you think would really help if they were just given a chance, but they never come to light. They flare up, a moment on the radar, only to be thrown aside.
Maybe it’s the reason I have a hard time with relationships in the sense that I don’t seem to have a middle button, only on and off. Only caring and bending backwards to offer help, and then nothing (because caring hurts too much). Maybe it’s also just my personality, my intensity, my difficulty in being patient.
Whatever it is, it’s resulted in where I am today. A person who finds it hard just to care a little bit, who throws herself whole heartedly into the middle or benches herself on the sidelines.
So when I have fought tooth and nail to try to get someone to care about themselves, and they don’t seem to be, it’s hard for me to let go and respect their decision. Because if you don’t care about yourself or your health, who will? I believe in being your number one supporter. I know it’s terribly hard, because you can also be your number one enemy (which I know). But I think that is what makes being your number one supporter more important. We go through life with one constant, ourselves. And if we don’t support ourselves, who can we count on to support us? I know we have parents, friends, loved ones, but, to a degree, they can be fleeting or temporary. Shooting stars across the night sky. But at the end of every night, we are always with ourselves.
Maybe I believe so much in this because I used to be much more involved with myself when I was younger, much more appreciative and affirmative of my own self love. And then it seems as if time has allowed me to be more critical more negative towards myself. Yes I have gotten more responsibility and pressure, but there should be a flicker somewhere deep inside of that self affirming girl.
And now that I am aware I have been spending so much time digging deeper, saving that girl from being lost, pressured into some self-deprecating person who relies on outside affirmation. Because I want to cultivate that relationship, to be one of my best friends, to know I believe in myself above all.
At the end of the day when I lay down on my pillow, I want to be happy with the person I share it with every night.