A Cake Too Beautiful

Have you ever seen a cake so immaculately decorated, you didn’t want to cut into it? Sometimes that’s how I feel about love. The idea of it can be too beautiful to actually dive in. I think that’s especially true of dating apps. Sometimes I like just knowing I COULD match, or simply knowing someone else wants to match with me. It’s the idea of being wanted. But that’s not love, because love requires that initial step of bravery, the ability to trust another person with my vulnerability. But first and more importantly, it’s about loving myself. Because if I don’t love myself, I can’t fully and truly love someone else. And that desire to be wanted would only be a reflection of my own insecurity and fear that I’m not worth loving. So it then becomes easier to say no than to say goodbye.

For many people, self-loathing stems from not feeling "accepted." For me, it specifically stemmed from the contradiction between my religious beliefs and my sexuality.

***Rewind 10 years***

Self-love. A thing of myths, like making a wish on a shooting star. I wanted to believe it existed, but belief without seeing is only faith, and faith is what caused my self-loathing in the first place. I can’t say I belonged to the most conservative religion out there, but it was definitely pretty far along the conservative spectrum. And the idea of an all-loving, merciful God who still spites those who differ from the traditional (binary) man-woman relationship, a God who touts unconditional love...under the condition that you believe in him and repent of your sins, that’s the kind of love I was taught to believe. That’s the kind of love I needed to forget in order to love myself. And this isn’t to bash organized religion; I want to be clear that the doctrines of my childhood religion gave me beautiful traits, ones that made me into the caring and loyal human I am today, and for that I will always be grateful. But I didn’t know that at the time. All I knew then was resentment. And I resented that.

I can’t tell you when exactly I learned to love myself or even how I learned it. I think it was an ever-evolving combination of things that helped me separate myself from my prior beliefs. But I think it started when I came out to my mom at 23 years old; saying the words out loud for the first time made it real, like I couldn’t run or hide from it anymore. It grew more with my first relationship that eventually led me to come out to the rest of my family, and then escalated when that relationship came to an end. I realized, despite the pain of the breakup, that I could live the single-life happily. That was truly a revelation (religious pun intended?), because I was previously under the assumption that the single life was forced upon me, a fate I simply had to endure for fear of eternal damnation.

I want to next address the concept of acceptance as an act of support, or lack thereof in my opinion. To me, when any of my less supportive family members said they accepted me, it never felt like anything more than tolerance, rather than support; they accepted me because they had to, because thankfully disowning me wasn’t an option, but they definitely did not approve, and they made that clear. And maybe the act of remaining in my life despite their opposition to my sexuality is an act of love, but I still argue it's an act still blinded by judgment. Of course, love is complicated.

But the love and true support of friends and some of my family members throughout the years has been a blessing. So I suppose my self-love was crafted through nurture and modeled by those I held close during a time I felt myself in a state of limbo, neither feeling a part of my religious community nor the LGBTQ+ community.

***Fast forward to the present***

To say I am filled with self-love would be a lie. I am not perfect. I still have my moments of self-doubt and unconstructive self-criticism. But I can truly say I love myself much more than I ever thought possible. I finally feel comfortable in my own skin and worthy of love. And I guess that’s fitting, because that immaculate cake you don’t want to ruin eventually gets devoured.