“You always act like you don’t deserve to be loved, or even be liked by
the other person. Hence, the pep talk.”
It struck a chord in the guitar
that is my heart. Looking back at how my (non)romantic life has taken shape
through the years, I must say that I have always had very low self esteem in
terms of loving and more importantly, in terms of being loved by another. I don’t
exactly know when and how it happened, I may have an inkling why, but I always
find myself believing that I have fallen for someone out of my league. It may
be a question of not knowing my self worth, or the challenge of fully believing
in my capability to make someone fall head over heels in love with me, but
every time I begin to acknowledge that I might be falling for someone, I get
scared.
How can one not be scared,
really? Knowing that when you love, you should be able to share yourself to the
other with the hope that what you share can be deemed valuable is such an
overwhelming thought. If you really know me, you know that when I love, I love
with everything I have, sometimes forgetting that pain should not be a constant.
What am I trying to make up for?
It could be because I have tried
almost every possible way to find love. I have experienced subtle, passive and
even full on rejection and sometimes, I am on the verge of believing that I will
never find him. I am trying to make up for my wrong choices, my lapses in
judgment and the fear that my wounded heart can never be healed again. I am making up for the possibility that I might
have emotionally disabled myself.
People can be too hard on
themselves. I know I am. I tend to always look inward when something goes wrong
and I don’t see anything wrong with it. I think everyone should. I’d like to
think that I am always partly responsible, if not fully, for whatever has
befallen me up to this point. However, the Facebook timeline reminded me that beyond
my failures, I am in a way better place now than where I was months, years or
even decades ago.
I have come too far to survive
life and there is nothing wrong with accepting that I am worth it, that I deserve
to love and be loved in return. If I can commit to being someone’s number one
fan, I do not see why no one will find it worthy to make the same commitment to
me and for me. Anything less than “I
believe in you.” can no longer be good enough.
During a cab ride home, my friend
asked me, “I don’t understand why I can’t seem to find him. I know I have so
much to offer.” I didn’t know why, at that time, but now I know.
Maybe it’s not about finding him
anymore but about believing that somewhere, someone is also trying to find you.
That if with some inexplicable magic, you find yourself bumping into that
person, you’ll realize that he recognizes you, because you are what he’s been praying
for and dreaming of, too. Maybe it’s about knowing that if
someone finally finds you, he is the luckiest person on earth.
Maybe it’s less about finding someone but more
about finding yourself.
