On Love + Valentine’s Day

I don’t claim to be an expert on love and relationships; in fact, I barely know a thing about it. Scratch that: I don’t know a thing about it, except that it’s a word—a pretty loaded one at that—that the Oxford dictionary defines as “an intense feeling of deep affection,” and one that I use only in the context of my family, my best friends, and beautiful things. I love a lot, and my life is defined by the people and things I love—and yet, I don’t know a thing about it.

What I do know, however, is that there’s all kind of love. Love of things, love for humankind; love for a lover, love of a brother; love for your dad, love for your mom; and the most underrated of all, love of and for yourself. I’d go so far as to say that it’s the hardest kind of love—self-love—because it requires more than just giving. 

You have to accept, too.

I’m not sure why it’s so much harder to accept yourself wholeheartedly than it is someone else. Is it innate—a means of survival, because if you’re not tough on yourself, life can overwhelm you—or is it conditioned? You’d think that in a world where #selfies are the new portrait, which empowers the individual to show others how he/she sees himself/herself (versus how someone else sees them), that we as generation would be more open to the idea of self-love and acceptance. (The sentiment is there, but if anything, it’s only perpetuated creation of a separate self—rather than who we truly are and wish to be—that falls under normal or “liked” by societal standards and narcissism.) Self-love is more complicated, more difficult than it’s ever been.

Without it, there’s no real foundation for a relationship with anyone else—family, friend, lover—ecause how can we be ourselves, and give 100%, when we don’t even know how to do that for ourselves? The beauty of being single is in having all the time in the world, sans distractions, to work on yourself. I truly believe that people will come when each of you are ready to give to one another, and that if you rush the process before it’s meant to be, unhappiness is inevitable.

Singledom isn’t a reflection of your desirability; whether or not you realize it at the time, it’s a declaration of independence and self-discovery.

And if it takes some amount of faking it ’til you make it in the self-love department, so be it then. It’s cliche, but it’s cliche for a reason: it works. Spend time not alone, but on a date with yourself; when you’re left with your own thoughts, you’re given the opportunity to explore who you are and could be. Treat yourself, because like L’Oreal loves to say, you’re worth it. You are! Who better to indulge than you? Why not look beautiful, or wear something extravagant, or do something you’ve always wanted to do? Making the effort to do something for you is the first step in reshaping your mentality and persepctive of self. Make it a habit and you start to believe it: hey, I really am worth it.

Once you see it, so will everyone else.

“There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.”

—John Lennon

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Happy Valentine’s Day.

xx