"If you have the ability to love, love yourself first."
― Charles Bukowski
I grew up, as did many young girls of my generation, with the dreams of Cinderella tucked under my pillow. I dreamed a fantastic journey awaited me - a life of miracles, of love, of beauty, of travel, of abundance, and I would reap them all as soon as I met my Prince Charming. This was way before feminist enlightenment, or, the cold-harsh reality of peddled cultural lies would smack me in the face and reveal a deception meant to keep gifted girls from sparkling in their own starlight, or, becoming their own charming princesses.
So, in search I went, (not unlike Prince Charming who sought to find the bearer and wearer of the beautiful glass slipper left behind by Cinderella), by hit or by miss, I took the long, winding road to a realization full of twists, turns and surprises that would have me concluding at some point that I was not so lucky, that for some reason, my destiny was not the fortune of other gifted girls.
At that unknown point in my life, I decided I would not be loved. I think it was rather early on in the process because as I was seeing things in my growing experience, love was just too hard, and fraught with just too many difficulties. I had my own parents to look to for that first rude awakening. Subsequently, my efforts were well-intentioned, but misguided.
"You can be the most beautiful person in the world and everybody sees light and rainbows when they look at you, but if you yourself don't know it, all of that doesn't even matter. Every second that you spend on doubting your worth, every moment that you use to criticize yourself; is a second of your life wasted, is a moment of your life thrown away. It's not like you have forever, so don't waste any of your seconds, don't throw even one of your moments away."
― C. JoyBell C.
Making that unconscious decision didn't mean that I didn't try. I did. I tried mightily. But at some point, I just gave up. I resigned myself to low or no relationships. I went through the motions with sparks, (every now and again), that lit up my eyes, but which in the next moment, dulled the cinders of hope, the way a smoker sometimes stubs out a cigarette with a strong determined effort. He blots it in the ashtray, swabs it around, looks to see if it is still smoldering, and stubs it again. And if so, he repeats the motions with even more effort and determination.
One thing has become clear to me. It is important to understand cycles and change, and find a way to adapt to and harmonize oneself with their rhythms because resistance is always a tougher battle. It is always waiting on the road, disguised sometimes as the well-wisher standing in a crowd of other well-wishers, who pretending to hand the runner a cool drink of water as she approaches the end of the marathon, really hands over an empty cup. Or, a hot cup of coffee. Resistance is a devil that can trap you in yourself and turn you around in corkscrews. You don't make much progress down the road of life. Or, you make it very slowly.
I had been so diligent in working on my spiritual and personal growth and development over the years, (and I have done swimmingly with that), that I was not paying too much attention to the human aspects of myself.
Way back when I was forming that decision that I would not have love, I also decided that I would not entangle myself in intimate or romantic partnerships until I had figured out why I continued to draw the same kind of person to myself as the one who had preceded him. The faces were different but the mechanics of the connection were generally the same. I determined to heal whatever patterns, ghosts of the past, traumas, or, bad habits were operating in my present, and exorcise them all.
By not involving myself in any kind of partnering, I did not recognize that I had no practice palette, nothing with which to test my levels of growth. Until recently. What I discovered was that I had not healed the biggest hurt of all: my festering sense of unworthiness. It brought my own sense of spiritual and personal advancement to my knees, and threw me back to Self-Love 101.
So, among other things I will be writing, I will be telling my love stories. I am going all the way back to the root. I am going to be tracing my own history to make the connections and heal the past (which is my present). You may spot easily what has taken me forever to piece together. But I will be exploring my process through writing. And just maybe, it may shed light for others, as well.
Join me.
© 2019. Egyirba High. All Rights Reserved.
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