When I was a young and an awkward teenager, I read ‘The Perks Of Being A Wallflower’. I had no idea how grave and poignant this statement is. It reflects on every possible aspect of love and the stumbling blocks that overpower it. Until and unless we truly know ourselves and are content with every flaw, and imperfection, there is no way that we can accept the love which will not only uplift us, support us, grow with us but will also make our lives much more extraordinary and far less mundane. This is the promise of love, that it will somehow fill the entirety of our past life traumas, make us feel a lot less lonely, and, help us live our lives with the comfort and support of a partner who will never judge and will never leave your side, come what may.
More often than not, we tend to fall in love with a depiction of how we feel about our selves. The self-pitiful ones, the co-dependent ones, the ones with self-worth issues, the ones with unstable emotions, the trauma struck ones, find love in a place where they are not respected, loved, cared for, in the manner that they should be. Their minds are tainted with hurt and anguish of the past which lets them choose the love which is at least safer than the humongous trauma that they went through, but because they have lost what truly is proposed as love, they tend to falter in their choices. Choosing the toxicity over and over again, changing from one form of it to another, and believing that they deserve every single bit of it, or at least it is not as damaging and detrimental as it could have been. This approach itself leads to a vindictive cycle which crushes their soul, in the end, results in a faithless, loveless and submissive weak-minded mess of emotions, which unlike what they think, only they can untangle.
They are not ready, to believe that there might be something, if not the best, but beautiful and perfectly-imperfect, saying the very least. They are not ready to give themselves to the power of it all or believe in anything, lest it is taken away from them. Good things to them, are fickle, and pain perpetual; love, a myth made by writers to influence the young-minded souls with, and true lovers, a mere figment of tipsy imaginations. But these are all nonsensical musings, no one deserves this way of living, no one deserves to be alone, or submerge in self-pity and get deranged by the self-worth spirals. It is only when we truly accept ourselves and our situations, that we can truly fall for somebody who appreciates and loves every part of us and give us the love and the life that we deserve, and treat us as we deserve to be treated. We spiral and we spiral until we reach the rock bottom, and from that pit, trust me, a person who is just inches above us, in that same spiral of self-loathing, emotional trauma and unhealthy coping mechanisms, seems like God sent an angel. While that soul, is fighting the same battles, crumbling under the same baggage and they too, like all of us, have no idea about the reality and the gravity of love, because they too cannot love themselves. This relationship can be nothing, but plain toxic and unfulfilling.
This theory does not always restrict itself to romantic relationships, but it does extend to love of all types, friendships, peer relationships, any connection that you can think of where we come together in the hopes to desert all toxicity, and realise the dreams of contentment that we covet in life. Because of our unfulfilled emotions, we tend to look for love in other directions, but end up in the same worthless tightening spiral, because it is us, till the very end. Choosing friends who are dominant or manipulative, lovers who will never think twice before crushing you into another mess of loneliness and dejected spirits, care from people who are not necessarily looking for your good but putting their efforts in you for selfish reasons, and people who will seek every opportunity to crumple your existence to fulfil their own needs. When we do find any sincere ones, any true keepers, we wander away and ghost off. It is not love, trust and loyalty that we have been acquainted with; all we have ever experienced is a package of all of our heartiest positive emotions and feelings that never find their way back to us; it is the hundreds and thousands of criticisms and malignant insults that we encountered before the right appreciation and validations could lift us. While some of us become the empath loving every soul, caring for everyone, trusting everyone because we know what being alone and struggling from of those dead-end spirals means, and, that too alone without any help or support. That leaves another big crater on our self-esteem when that care, love and empathy is never reverted. This can be as harmful and toxic as it anything could ever be, draining out all our love to sustain another, while you are left with none for your poor little heart. Although courageous and brave to do, and angelic even, it is emotionally draining and leads our souls to a path which is incapacitating for a normal, content and happy livelihood.
We in this age, suffer every day, in every relationship, because all of us are carrying a truckload of emotional baggage, all we have ever seen is heartbreak and ugly, toxicity. Living with a past that is hard to shake off, and a life that feels incomplete, and worthless. Until we make peace with that and start feeling comfort and love in our own body, only then will we able to accept this magical thing called love, from the person who will know what love is and who will know every ounce of your body and love it like it was magic. Wait for that epic love, and do not settle for good enough, or okay-ish, because you deserve nothing less than that imperfectly-perfect, person.
