What does love mean?
When I was younger I believe love was this magical fairy dust power. It wasn’t supposed to be hard, it just happened, fell right into pieces. If it was meant to be, it would be. Love would always win, would trump all obstacles. Nothing was more powerful than love. It would always be enough.
Now that I am older, I realize how naive that view of love was. Don’t get me wrong, some things I still believe, like that love is powerful. But what I’ve learned and realized is that love is not a magical power. Love is work, because things rarely if never fall right into place. Thinking that the world will stop because of love is not true. There are wrong times and places were love could have grown. Love is not like a rainbow cloud. It is like a plant, requiring good soil, water and sunlight. It requires weeding and tender care. Love does not trump all obstacles, there are some that are insurmountable, and love is not always enough. It is not like superglue and sometimes it cannot hold things together. Sometimes love is there, but you have to leave. Love cannot make people change, it can help them to change themselves, but it is not a force of change. I tried to make love work for me all the time, to make it be enough for me. To think that my love for another person was enough to stave off the despair and the pain, the betrayal. That’s not how it works.
So what did I learn besides becoming more cynical and less jaded? Love for yourself. That is the love that you have to protect even more. Love for yourself to know when you have to walk away, to set your own limits, to stand fast to your principles, to say no. Love for yourself to know that love for another person will not save you. Loving yourself is the only way. Love for yourself to cut out the toxic, to leave the emotionally abusive. I believe in second chances and change still, despite everything, but I also believe that the love I really truly need, not just want or choose, is the love of myself.