I've spent a great deal of my life chasing love. Whether the love of my biological father, the love of the people around me..the love of a man or the love of a foe..For many years, I craved acceptance from everyone around me. YES, everyone! I can recall a guy I dated in my 20's telling me I needed to stop trying to be Ms. Rogers of everybody's neighborhood and not everyone was going to like me. THE AUDACITY.
That relationship was a roller-coaster of a mess, but his words proved to reign true and were effective. I remember them and still reflect on them today. I often wondered where that burning desire for acceptance which caused me to act out and act up came from.I don't think it was one thing. I think it was a series of things. I think it happened on the heels of heartbreak. Of giving and loving blindly and forgetting to use my head AND my heart simultaneously. I think it happened the day I woke up and realized that I can't keep expecting people to give, be, act, love, react, respond like ME. I think it happened the day I saw my biological father at a gas station and he didn't recognize me. I think it happened the day I lost my innocence. So overtime, that desire to be loved and accepted showed up in so many insecure ways, damaged relationships a long the way and made me second guess who I really was at my core. Tough lessons brought me here.
So, I was today years' old when I decided that I don't need to chase love, I don't need to seek validation-- but I DO need to lean into who loves me. I have decided that from this moment on, I am only going (growing) where the love is. Love shows up and show out. Love leaves you very little room to question. Love rights wrongs. Love isn't a beg. Love isn't deceitful. Love is transparent. Love sometimes is hard. But love is intentional. Love is true to you and allows you to be true to It. Love is God. Love is beautiful. Love is real. Anything that isn't about loving me wholly doesn't take up space in my heart and I give it but a moment in my mind. The catch is, I don't just expect it. I give it. Love is my heart. Love is my intentions. Love is the way I show up and show out. Love is my decisions. Love is my expectations. Love is who I am. Love is what I give. I don't need to seek that which I already am. I don't need to beg for the love I already have for myself. Yes, I'm still a work in progress. Some days I forgot about love and what it really represents, but the crazy thing about love is, it always finds its way back to me.