Love has a funny way of making you forget yourself. You lose yourself in the other person and you are no longer an individual. You forget your old ways, your hobbies, and lifestyle, and you forget to love yourself because you're too busy loving someone else.
I've decided that I need to fall in love with myself before I can fall in love with someone else. I lost myself in my last relationship and forget who I was before the relationship. I abandoned my friends, my old hangout spots, my music, my guilty pleasures. I became so wrapped up and invested in my boyfriend that I didn't know who I was anymore.
I forgot all of the scary movies I would watch by myself in the daytime. I forgot that I was a fast food junkie. I forgot that I would drive out to a field in the middle of the day just to get some mud on the tires. I forgot that I took up more space in bed than a person of my size should. I missed the friends I had left behind. I missed singing along to the songs that made me cry and the ones that made me belt out the words at the top of my lungs.
I had heard a song on the radio, "Miss me more" by Kelsea Ballerini, and it spoke volumes to me. I missed myself and the woman I was before. I wasn't perfect back then, nor am I now, but I missed the old me that had been working so hard on becoming a better version of herself. I got too comfortable in the relationship and forget that I was still trying to improve on myself.
I fell out of love with myself. I started to hate who I was. I slipped into the strangest state I'd ever been in- a constant trance of disorientation and exhaustion. I was never fully present; I was always somewhere else in time because I just didn't know who I was or what I was doing.
I knew I had to make the decision to better myself. I had to leave the relationship so I could fall in love with myself again.
I started gardening again. I took longer bubble baths with glasses of wine. I took out my journal and worked on my stories. I looked at myself in the mirror a little longer and told myself I was the person I was most in love with.
It's never easy to leave someone to focus on yourself, but sometimes you just have to make the call and do it for the right reason. At the end of the day, you're stuck with yourself, and if you don't love you, no one else will.
To the heart that I broke while trying to find myself- I'm sorry, but I'll never love anyone as much as I'm going to love myself.