Love

My purpose.  I am here to love.  I am here to love and admire and enjoy.  I love love.  I love being in love, I love watching others in love, I am in love with love.  Perhaps because my sign is ruled by Venus, the planet of love, I am infatuated with loving as much as I possibly can during my short span here on Earth.  I want love all around me all the time.

Sounds great – but the problem is that this world is so full of hate and anger and negativity.  I am surrounded by it.  I do my best not to indulge in it.  I try to encourage and display love and light in all I say and do, but sometimes it gets the best of me.  It is easy for my mind to go into dark places, but for some reason, I only think negative things about myself.  I can forgive the most unforgivable in others and chalk it up to their own life lessons and experience.  But when I make a mistake or someone tells me something is wrong with me, I dive into a self-hating spiral and it is difficult to pick myself back up.

Here is what I think the problem is.  I hate to disappoint people.  I was raised to do whatever my parents said and if I didn’t, I was punished.  And I was punished quite a lot, mostly for speaking my mind and arguing that my mom’s rules made no sense and weren’t fair.  But I digress; what I’ve learned from that is: punish your child enough and they will learn to punish themselves.  How do we change habits that have long been ingrained in our very nature?  How do I accept the fact that I am human and I will make mistakes just as everyone else?  And how do I convince myself that I am worthy of my own forgiveness?  This is what I struggle with when negativity presents itself.  How do I love myself even when I fuck up?

I am so afraid to fail that I rarely take chances on things unless I am completely sure I won’t fuck it up.  Example: my boyfriend and I are playing music together – well, he plays, I sing – and I was so terrified to have my singing actually heard because I was afraid it wouldn’t be perfect.  Which it wasn’t – but did it kill me to actually try?  You would’ve thought it was life or death if you had seen my initial reaction to the “intimidating” microphone standing in front of me.  Why did I have such a ridiculous reaction to the thought of failure?  Why am I so sensitive to constructive criticism or advice?  Because I was raised in an environment that constantly made me feel like I was doing something everything wrong.  And I hate that feeling.  I avoid it at all costs.  And when I do feel like I’ve fucked something up, it is difficult for me to move on.

I’m sure I’m not the only person who feels like this.  In fact, I’m pretty sure my closest friends have the same problem because I know how they were raised, and I have a feeling that is what has attracted us to each other on a LOA level.

But I’m fucking over it.  I’m so tired of living so carefully.  Can you even call it living?  I’ve been so safe up to this point, it hardly feels like it.  When I’m not beating myself up mentally for fucking something up, I actually enjoy myself.  I like the way I think and I like the way I talk.  I appreciate the fact that I can see the light in most situations where others are in despair (they may not like it, but I do) and I enjoy my sense of humor.  I am a pretty cool chick and I will make mistakes.  Ironically, I read this quote on Facebook today:

“The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.” – Stephen McCranie

What a noob I am at life.  I’m 30 years old and I’m finally ready to try.  Sorry for all the fuck ups bound to happen, but they are making me a better me and I love that!  And I am grateful for my upbringing, because honestly it humbled me.  I am not perfect, that’s true.  But it has made me a more loving and accepting person when it comes to others.  And I love that about me.

“If you can’t love yourself, then how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?!  Can I get an Amen?!” - RuPaul