Not a Love Story

Let’s face it. The concept of experiencing romantic true love is exciting and enchanting. And to be honest, love is the ultimate Universal language. If you think otherwise, you may just be lying to yourself. But if we’re discussing truth, we certainly cannot dismiss the fact that sometimes...most of the time...things just don’t work out with that “special someone”.

I, myself, even at my current age of 22 years old can admit that I've been in love once before and to experience that was amazing for the time being. When it didn’t workout, I was crushed. Back then, I couldn’t really tell you what I thought would happen with this “love of my life”. I just know that with my 17 year old head in the clouds, I wasn’t expecting it to ever end. When it did, though, I was devastated. I felt a pain in my heart that I had never felt before for an ending that I never truly anticipated. My first romantic connection, first attachment, first experience of love for what I knew love to be at that time, first everything (if you know what I mean) had perished and to make matters even worse, he’d moved on to someone new! This situation was the beginning of a pivotal moment in my life... a moment that helped me to understand that love ain't always a fairytale.

As a young teenage girl, this whole situation genuinely altered my self confidence, self esteem, the way that I saw myself in general. But the outcome of my experience wasn’t all sad and sappy. There is a real transformation that comes from having your heart broken. There is an alteration that is able take place in your spirit as you turn your cheek away from the concept of the fairytale love that society consistently conditions our minds to fancy. The idea that one can “save” you and love you deeply as y’all ride off into the sunset and end up together forever. It's bull. But as you turn from this proven myth, a powerful redirection to self may commence. In my circumstance, the breaking away of this relationship forced me to redirect my love and attention to myself over time. Relationships that are built upon love for one another, but consist of an absence of deep love for oneself, for either one or both parties, can never end well.

There is something so empowering about rebuking the concept of needing to be saved by a counterpart’s love. There is a powerful energy that reveals itself within your most inner being after realizing that the source of love for you should first be from yourself and if someone is worthy enough to add to that, they may if you allow...

Love can certainly be paradoxical and I feel as though the same descriptor can be borrowed when discussing the infamous holiday: Valentine’s Day! As humans, it is in our nature to desire love, to be desired, especially from a romantic counterpart. And once again, I would be lying if I said that most of us did not need a counterpart EVENTUALLY. When love is healthy and mutual, it’s beautiful. But when it’s one sided, untrue or doesn't last, the impact can be deadly.

After sulking in sadness, bossing up seems to be the only remedy that can truly deliver you from heartbreak and into the journey of appreciating yourself first. R&B/soul music is what my playlist consists of because I feel that it does such a great job of conveying the empowerment of something as contradicting as rising up higher after sinking down so low for so long. It exemplifies the idea of getting it out the mud and transmuting wounds into wisdom.

Since we're contemplating paradoxes, I can certainly say there were times throughout my self love/empowerment journey where even though he broke my heart, I missed my ex, but at my core, I really gave no fucks about us getting back together. The ironic commodity about my story, is that he eventually missed me as well and tried to come return to me in the midst of my self discovery.

At heart, I am a hopeless romantic and personally would like to end up with a sappy fairytale love story, only this time, it won't include the stereotype version of another saving me. This year on February 14th, though, my mood wasn't necessarily "f*ck love", but it certainly was "f*ck Valentine's Day".