You started hearing it when you were little. People all around you would tell you how you were going to be hard to love one day -- that you were going to be difficult to put up with. And little did they know how much that actually affected you and your thinking. From the beginning, you tried to change yourself -- make yourself easier to love as if that’s a thing. Being hard to love isn’t a fault nor is it even true most of the time. Everyone I know is a little hard to love. We all have our mistakes and imperfections, but isn’t that what makes each of us worthy of loving? Just because some of us don’t present ourselves as faultless people doesn’t mean we aren’t worth perfect love. But yet again, you are told time after time how hard you are to love, how you are going to be a handful to deal with. So to the girls that are “harder” than most, here’s why you should love being called, “hard to love.”

1. “You expect too much”

Maybe sometimes you do, that’s what every person does from time to time. You just like to give people the benefit of the doubt. You like giving people the upper hand in life for you find it is so much better to believe in people than to expect the worst, especially in love. It’s not about expecting too much, it’s about the faith in people to exceed even their own expectations.

2. You’re not perfect

You don’t believe that anyone, besides God, is perfect. Perfection is something many people strive for, but it’s like putting yourself out there for known failure. Maybe it’s easier to love a perfect person, but until I find a perfect person out there, I’d rather love an imperfect person with a worthy heart. You’re perfectly fine being imperfect -- actually, you’re happy that you aren’t perfect.

3. “You’re a handful”

Aren’t we all though? Calling someone a handful is like telling them that they are a human. You are very aware of how much work you are, but you don’t expect anyone to deal with you fully. Everyone is a lot of work, because if they aren’t, you wouldn’t be interested in them anyway.

4. You love the special people in your life

When you find someone you love, you love them with your whole heart, soul, and body. You pour yourself into them. But not just anyone -- it takes you a while to warm up to people. You’ve been hurt before because of your heavy loving, so when you finally find anyone worth loving, you would do any and everything for them to be happy, including leaving them. You’re perfectly fine getting your heart broken if that means the other person is happy. It’s just who you are.

5. “You’re hard to love”

You shouldn’t deny it or hide it or shy away from it. Own it. Maybe you are hard to love, and maybe you can’t admit that, but don’t ever let someone tell you that you aren’t worthy of loving. Because let me tell you something, loving someone who is hard to love is one of the greatest and most rewarding things in this world. They are the best people to love without a doubt.

So go out there, live your life, be harder than most, and watch the impact you have on people’s lives. You’re not a curse but rather a blessing, sometimes in disguise. Coming from one girl who is hard to love to another, you are so worth the work in the end.