They always say that in order for someone else to love you and for you to love someone else, you have to fully love yourself. I never really knew what that meant until recently.
I always just thought that things would fall into place on their own and there wouldn't really be much thought put into it, but the process of falling in love with yourself is just that- a process. Not an easy one either. Things don't just fall into place, they fall out of place and it is the hardest thing to deal with.
You wake up one day and the life and friendships you knew are shattered into pieces and you wonder how you're going to manage to pick them all up and put them together. As you begin to frantically search for all of the pieces to fix the puzzle you realize that you're missing a few, and then you realize you're missing way more than just a few. Once you realize you're only left with a couple it's hard to make sense of it all and figure out what the picture is supposed to look like.
When my puzzle fell apart I had no clue what I was going to do. I didn't know who I was going to walk through life with and I honestly didn't have any desire to figure things out. I was 100 percent lost, but finally, things started to make sense again. It took a long while, but I began to figure out that I didn't need the old pieces in my life to be content. I needed the pieces I have now.
I needed things and people that were easy for me to invest in. The only struggle was finding those things and people. Finding things that brought me the right kind of joy. Finding people who made me feel accepted and loved. Finding the opposites of what I had before.
It's easy for people to look back and see how their lives have greatly improved from when everything fell apart. It is easy for everyone to look back and say "wow I am shocked it took me so long to get through that." But when we are actually experiencing it we wonder will we ever make it. We wonder if we will ever be able to accept ourselves or better yet, love ourselves. Somehow, we do. Somehow, someway, we make it through.
Earlier when I mentioned the famous words of "in order for someone else to love you and for you to love someone else, you have to fully love yourself," I mentioned that I didn't know what that meant. I thought it meant romantic love, and it does, but it really covers every type of love. It's easiest to receive love in all of your relationships when you know how to give it, and the best way to know how to give love is to be able to give it to yourself.