What I know about Love...This is a quick read cause it AIN'T much!

I am quickly approaching 35 and I like the prospect of being 35. I think at 35 I finally know who I am. I think in my 20s I thought I knew who I was but it was so surface. I think when I turned 30 was when I really realized I had NO IDEA of who I was and what I liked or didn’t like. I think I realized in my late 20’s early 30s that I was who the world expected me to be. I was who my education said I should be, I was who my upbringing said I should be, I was who my family expected me to be. I was not who I wanted to be. Not because my family wouldn’t let me be or not love me if I was. I wasn’t who I wanted to be because I hadn’t quite figured out who she was or that who she was could exist. If you know me I am walking contradiction, but the older I get the more I think this is more a norm than an exception. I am wonderfully GRAY in all its many different shades and I now love and embrace that about me. Instead of trying to be either or I have learned that I can be either some days and or on others!

Today, I thought I would share some notes from my journey to gray. Theses are all still things in progress but I think fun to share, because what I am learning with every waking breath we really are a lot more alike than we are different. Today I am going to talk about love because it is the latest equation I am working out in my life. I am learning how to love and be loved as an adult woman and it is so hard. Because I have loved before on a few occasions ( very few, so I guess this probably why LOVE is kicking me in the azz) I know my way around the emotion but really being loved for who I am not who I should be or who I am supposed to be that is new and scary to me. Well by a man, my friends have long LOVED my silly azz.

So here are OGs very brief observations and notes on love:

Love is EXTREMELY humbling.
I am realizing to truly love someone is probably one of the most humbling experiences ever. Love makes you do and say things you don't want to say. It makes you feel weak and it EXPOSES the most vulnerable parts of you. You realize that with all your self control and discipline your emotions can still control you.

Love shines the light on all your flaws and insecurities
Well true love does that. Because what I am realizing is that when you love someone, you start to look at all those things you don’t like about yourself. Well, I do. I look at all my negatives as potential reason that love might not be returned, some you can change but others are just you.

The thing about mature love is if you LOVED yourself you will have gone through these things with yourself before and you will be ready to be honest and already know those things about yourself and know if they are things you can/should change or if they are things that are you and need to be loved because that is who you are.


Love is one of the BIGGEST gambles we take in life
When you feel like no one else matters but the one you love, it certainly feels like putting all your eggs in one basket. And if they love you back it definitely feels like hitting the jackpot. However, love really isn’t a game of chance. It is beyond the physical to me. I think when you love someone you find something in them that reflects you. I think that is why it is hard for someone who doesn’t love himself/herself to truly love another.

Love really is blind…but not the way I thought it was
It’s funny at my age and station in life; love makes me forget who I am. It seems that love has reduced me to this chubby pre-pubescent little girl in pigtails. Not at all looking at the things I bring to the table and why he might love me. I was so busy look at all the things and reasons he has not to love/like me and obsessing over them. Love is crazy that way. Thank God I have friends to remind me well of course he wants to be with you look at you! You are [insert all the good things about yourself that you have forgotten because love has you so scared ] !

Still today, despite being happy and feeling very loved, I have resigned myself to a life of never finding a man that makes me feel comfortable being myself and more importantly loves my awkwardness and internal contradiction. I’m sure that isn’t healthy but its how I have chosen to deal with things. It’s much easier to prepare for the worse and than it is to get blindsided while still in the warm afterglow of love. Well maybe it isn’t.

Anyway, no matter what this journey of learning how to love and more importantly learning how to be loved brings me it, I am sure it will make me a better person. I think in the end, for me, my GROWTH as a human being is all that really matters!!

Be EZ,

OG

Comments

crys said…
OH JJ - if you only had access to a computer! Oh how I WISH you could read this blog every now and again. ~my inner thought~

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