“Am I unlovable? How do I tell if I am? And why, why am I so unlovable?” Questions that cross so many of our hearts. But the absolute truth is that you are NOT unlovable. You are absolutely worthy of love. And you do not have to find this worth … you were born with it. It is already there; it is already you. But we’re also all forgiven for thinking we might not hold that kind of worth. Because the outside world is so good at twisting the story.
We try so hard to be someone “they” could love
I’m struck again by another friend in crisis. Another relationship ended. Another beautiful being broken by someone else’s demand for her to be something that she isn’t. Something other than her full and brave and beautiful and radiant self.
And the worst part of all this – that she can’t twist herself into someone else’s version of “perfection” – is that she thinks it’s all her fault, that she’s the one who is unlovable.
Too many of us have walked the pages of this story. We know how it goes. And so, nothing she did was ever enough for him. Even though she tried harder and harder, pushing her true self deeper and deeper into a dark corner, trying to become something he said he could love. And you know what? He still turned away.
But that’s not on her.
The world doesn’t make it easy to be who we are
This is not a world that makes it easy for us to be who we are, never mind like who we are. We’re not taught to love our flaws. We’re not shown how to love and accept ourselves for who we are. Instead, the world conditions us to hide our “faults”.
Paint your lips, it says. Nip your tucks. Flash your smile. Filter your photos. Be nice. Be happy. Be in control. Be ambitious. Go for gold. Don’t stumble don’t fall don’t come undone. Don’t let them see. Don’t ever, ever let them see.
And so we hide our faults. We wear masks and bury our true selves and try to squeeze ourselves into smaller, tidier packages in the hopes of finding a little acceptance in an existence rife with rejection.
But there will only ever be one “you”
We need to be reminded, again, and again, that we are in fact, extraordinary.
In the words of Lawrence Krauss, a theoretical physicist and cosmologist, “Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust.”
There will never be another individual created in the cosmic fires quite like you. There will only ever be one “you”. One. Ever. And we deserve to be loved for our beautifully flawed and complex selves. So instead of trying to be someone they could love … wouldn’t it be infinitely more exhilarating to be the person you could love?
Play your starring role with reckless abandon. No matter how wild and stormy you may be, or shy or quiet or weird or conventional or dark or messy … no matter how inconvenient or uncomfortable it may be for others.
Fuck them. Love you.
“Let someone love you just the way you are …. as flawed as you might be, as unattractive as you sometimes feel, and as unaccomplished as you think you are. To believe that you must hide all the parts of you that are broken, out of fear that someone else is incapable of loving what is less than perfect, is to believe that sunlight is incapable of entering a broken window and illuminating a dark room.” – Marc Hack
