learning what love can be
I had a conversation with a friend recently that made something settle in me. Not suddenly, and not loudly. Just enough for me to recognize a pattern I’d been living inside of for a long time, and finally understand it.
For most of my life, my relationships have reflected how I saw myself. When I didn’t value who I was, I accepted relationships that matched that. I stayed in situations that hurt because they felt familiar. They felt believable. They felt like what I was meant to accept.
I didn’t trust good things to last, so I learned how to protect myself from wanting them. I learned how to brace instead of hope. Wanting less felt safer than wanting more, and pain felt easier to prepare for than care. Looking back, I can see how clearly my relationships acted as mirrors. They showed me exactly where my sense of worth was at the time.
What’s different now is that I see myself differently. I don’t believe I have to be smaller, quieter, or easier to love in order to be worthy of care. I don’t think love has to hurt to be real. I see myself as someone deserving of gentleness, patience, and respect, and that belief has slowly started to change everything.
Because of that, the relationships in my life feel different too.
I’m with someone who doesn’t want to change me. Someone who has seen me in vulnerable moments and met me with steadiness instead of discomfort. Being vulnerable with him doesn’t feel like something I have to apologize for or clean up afterward. He shows me, in small and consistent ways, that my feelings are okay to feel, that they don’t make me too much or hard to love.
That kind of reassurance has made it easier for me to be honest, not just with him, but with myself. I feel safe letting my guard down. I feel allowed to feel things fully instead of pushing them aside. And I know how rare that is, which is why I don’t take it lightly.
I’m not loved in spite of the parts of me that are complicated or imperfect, but alongside them, as part of who I am. He treats me with care that doesn’t try to fix or reshape me, and experiencing that has reinforced something I’m still learning to believe: that I am worth being treated well.
Even if this relationship doesn’t last forever, I know I’m lucky to have experienced it. Not because it saved me or fixed me, but because it showed me what’s possible when self-worth leads the way. It clarified what I should never again convince myself to accept less than.
I’m not angry at who I used to be. I understand her. She did the best she could with what she believed at the time. But I’m grateful that I don’t live there anymore.
My relationships look different now because I am different. And that difference feels calm. It feels safe. It feels real.
And to the person who helped remind me of that: thank you for loving me in a way that made it okay to feel everything.