You know how they say that you need to learn to love yourself before you can love someone else? Not only have I discovered that this is true, yet that it stops short of everything else that you can love. Don't only learn how to love yourself so you can love other people, but so that you can love every experience you have and cherish every trial you face.
Don't get me wrong, learning how to love myself was probably one of the hardest things that I have ever done. Please believe me that it didn't come with the blink of an eye either. It took me all the way until about February of my senior year in high school to realize that I loved myself and every flaw that came with it. Now, before I learned to love myself and finally accomplished that in February 2015, it took me three years of soul searching and bravery to find myself, who I was, and who I wanted to be.
The turning point in my life where I decided that I wanted to love myself and not depend on others and their opinions of me for happiness was my freshman year of high school. I went to a small high school and I was the only girl from my feeder school to go there, so I started off at a disadvantage. I also lived 40 miles away from my school, which meant all of my friends would be extremely far away. That was the year that I met my best friend. Now, not a lot of people could see it or why we were so attracted to each other because we were so different, but I'm entirely grateful that we grew so close so fast. She has a big, bubbly personality that shines like the sparkle in her eyes when she laughs and smiles (and I can't tell you how hard it has been to be away from each other for our first year of college). Sometimes her personality almost seems too big for her body!
We continued to grow closer into sophomore year when I realized that there was something different about her that I wanted to be able to do. She didn't let what others said about her change who she was. I wanted that. I needed that confidence. So I started to work. I taught myself how to love who I was through her example. (Hey best friend if you're reading this I'm sorry if you're crying by now.) My BEST FRIEND taught me and showed me what it was like to love yourself despite flaws and the opinion of others. Obviously we remained best friends throughout high school and still are today even though we have seen each other three short times in eight months.
Finally, after actually working on self love for nearly four years, my shell had cracked and I was the person that I always wanted to be. Because of this, not only have I had the opportunity to love an amazing man (although he is no longer by my side) and love everything that I do every single day. It has allowed me to build relationships with more people that my high school self could have ever imagined. I am the version of myself that I have always seen inside, but now it shows on the outside too. It is confidence, it is happiness, it is bravery, and it is LOVE.
It is true that they say you have to learn to love yourself before you can love someone else, and that you need to love yourself in order to love every trial and experience you have. What they don't tell you is that you can learn how to love yourself through the example of someone else who is also trying to find their way.
