Love Stories and Other Illusions

So the rush of the holidays are FINALLY slowing down just in time for us to question our validity with Valentines day. I mean doesn’t the crooner himself, Mr. Sinatra sing “you’re nobody till somebody loves you.” ??

Now I don’t know about you but I was growing up on Disney and the unrealistic illusion of John Hughes films so like many a 30 something year old females I was doomed from the start and don’t even get me started on Hallmark films during Christmas, Christ we don’t stand a chance!

Being saved by the love of your life is practically burned into our brains since birth and don’t get me mistaken there is nothing wrong with the love of love, but there can be when it limits our beliefs on our worth or only gives one ending to a love story and don’t worry I struggle with this as I write it too.

Now, do I sound like a woman who has had her share or lack luster valentines??? Well it’s probably because I have but this isn’t what this is about. Its about Love, the only kind that matters the kind I’m reminding myself of this valentines because it is the one that shapes all other loves in our lives. The love story we speak over ourselves.

Now if you don’t have a leading man you may be thinking to yourself what love story?! hell my life isn’t even a romantic comedy because that requires well … romance. I hear you girl, I do but stick with me here.

Let me tell you my old love story…

I grew up as stated saturating myself with what I like to call now the illusion of romance the stuff that gets us by the romantic comedies, the singer song writers, the fantasy of sitting on a dinning room table blowing our birthday candles. I came from a home life with parents that fought and divorced and I swore my story wouldn’t be like theirs, I would find my soulmate, I would be smarter, I would be saved.

Long story short I got the guy, I got married, I got the title, I was a military wife during war, the stuff was straight from the notebook, only it wasn’t. There was no real love there, not from him and not from me.

Neither one of us could love the other because neither one of us loved ourselves. A lot of things happened in that marriage a lot of things that hurt but what hurt the most was realizing how little I loved myself and that’s when my love story really changed.

I became smarter through time and experience, got saved by the grace of God and a series of serious reality checks and in fact found my soulmate, she was standing in the mirror the whole time, waiting for me to love her back.

You see we are our greatest love stories! We ourselves can rescue the young girl wanting to be swept off her feet. We can delight in all the little wonders that make us worth loving. We can marvel at the beauty of our own bodies, we can be the love of our lives.

Just like love with a partner this takes time, it takes getting to know yourself, it means creating intimacy with honest conversations, it means expressing feelings and opening up, it means trusting with out judgement, it means being yourself and accepting that person, because she is worthy of love!

Maybe you have a valentine this year, maybe you don’t but either way you can feel love, you can carry it with you for you to you created by you.

Appreciate all the little things that make you lovely, list of them, you know like “the speech” the one where the main character pours out their heart to the love of their life, the John Cusack boombox moment.

For the sake of transparency and practicing what I preach here is mine:

I love how I sing under my breath when I think no one’s is listening
I love how I dance randomly, even in the grocery store… for no apparent reason
I love how when I laugh and my eyes get really small and my teeth get really big
I love how I occasionally use accents when I read
I love how I can now say I love how…

Love Starts Here, With us, Within us.

-NYA

Photo by Quinton Pete

So rewrite your love story be the leading lady AND the love of her life and if someone else comes along, awesome let them love you too! ( if they are worthy of you of course)

but if they don’t or take a while to get here, well there will already be love there so it’s gonna be okay because there isn’t just one ending to a good love story.

Remember we can only give the love we know so if you have someone by your side and they cant give you the grandeur of love you expect, they too may be battling with loving themselves.

This is why we must learn to master it with ourselves first, learn to receive it so we can better give it and stop settling for less than what we deserve.

trust me I’ve been there! There is a lot of things I love about myself ( and yes it’s ok to say that!) but one thing I don’t love is how I bend my standard , or have made myself small to accommodate others for the sake of “love” but that’s the illusion and never ends up being satisfying. So this valentines day with a partner or no partner vow to love yourself a little more, because that’s where real lasting love stories begins!

Con todo amor,

Jen