Forgive Who you were

When I was younger the only thing I ever really cared about was love. While everyone else was fantasizing about what they would be when they grow up I was thinking like a stereotypical 1940s teenage girl. It's why I was married with a baby at 18 years. I just desperately wanted to be loved by someone and have family that wanted me so I set out to make a family of my own. I assumed my life would be perfect when I found someone to love me and then everything else would just fall into place. My obsession with love was the beginning of my hardships and let downs. I learned that love isn't waiting for anyone and that most of us have a really messed up perception about what it truly is. 

The first lie I learned about love is that love conquers all. That lie lead me to believe that all I had to do is love harder and stronger with everything in me and that it would magically fix everything that's wrong. Love does not fix unhealthy people and in many ways it can make them worst because they will use your love against you. That lie is the reason lots of people remain in abusive relationships. In reality all that person learns is that you have no boundaries and that they can do anything to you and that you will take it because you are emotionally invested in them.  Instead of getting better they get worst because they will keep upping the abuse to find your breaking point while they build their ego around your love.

The second lie about love is love hurts.
What makes this a damaging belief is many people assume from this belief that love is supposed to hurt and so they sacrifice themselves to hurtful relationships because they think that their love has been confirmed real because they are in pain. The truth is love does not hurt it's people that hurt. We just can't let go of hurtful abusive people because we love them and nothing about that is romantic. I used to really believe because of that saying that love was supposed to hurt. I thought I was getting the rite of passage into love and would try to prove my love through my pain because of it. When I look back at all the things I allowed to happen to me to prove my love through pain I began to grieve for my younger self and experience feelings of worthlessness all over again . I have found it difficult to forgive myself for being too trusting and naively optimistic in my view of how people actually are. I was one of those people like all young people are without experience to support my beliefs that thought I knew where I was headed. The future higher self of us all lay waiting and judging us all very harshly for being wrong about what life is truly about and who we actually are.

I think it's the biggest problem for all of us middle aged people. We finally reach the age where we have the battle scars to prove that we are finally adults and we don't arrive to it happily. Now mostly all we do now is beat up on ourselves because we are still trying to work our way out of the hardships of our youth's decisions. We think, " damn! If had I been smarter or if I had been wiser." We live to cringe all the things we were so confidently ignorant about before.
I've gone through a lot but by far the hardest thing I believe I have done is learned how to forgive myself for not being who I thought I was and forgiving myself for mistakes I made when I truly didn't know any better. Learning the hard way knocks us off of our ego. It feels like an endless fall but we eventually crash into awareness shapeless and valunarably malleable ready to accept that we were wrong and for the first time in our life's being wrong feels right. We become anxious and proud to say that we don't know about something because it's easier to be incorrect about a state a mind in our assumptions than it is to prove that you are right with your life.

We have to forgive ourselves for who we used to be because our mistakes are a rite of passage into maturity to shape us into the best version of ourselves. If you have gotten far enough to learn through your own madness it's time to see it as a bage of honor. I used to have this friend that would tell me wild and embarrassing stories about her life and I would walk away thinking I would never have told people that about me . That was back when was still wrapped up in how other people saw me. Today I look back at her stories and I understand now through my own experiences that sometimes we can survive something so grim and difficult we want to shout it to the world because we are still surprised that we lived through it. I can tell people I have wanted to die and all the reasons why I did because I made it through and I have no shame in sharing my experience especially if it can teach someone else that those difficult things are possible to live through.

If you should find yourself today or tomorrow reflecting on who you were and the mistakes you made and you feel sad and regretful just close your eyes and wrap your arms around yourself and say despite what I have been I am better today by choice and will be even better tomorrow as I continue to grow forward.