You Are Your Only Best Friend

You have to love yourself before you love anyone else.

Let's just dive right into the topic of relationships, with yourself and when you open yourself to another person. I'll be sharing with you everything I've learned in the last year with all things love.

I've always been told, "When you stop looking for love, it will come to you." I never believed this until the end of freshman year about a year after my first "heartbreak," when I finally felt as if I was the most important person in my life. I went to therapy to start becoming the person I envisioned myself being, but I knew it was going to take a lot more work then just therapy to reach my goal. I started focusing on the things I lost sight of while going through that emotional time. I started giving my friends the time they deserved, focused on my grades and work, and continued my hobbies like dancing and reading. Trust me I did not want to do any of this at first, but you are the only person that can pick yourself up from this, you are the only one that can make the decision to get over it.

Once I reached that point in my healing, where I completely let myself move on and felt ok with being alone I met someone new. At my young age it is so easy to think this is it, this is the person for me, especially when you worked on yourself and you are ready to share your good with someone else. I felt as if everything was falling into place, I was happy with myself and the new people around me. Looking back at this time, it was much easier to be happy during times of no worry (aka summer). Although my summer was lovely I knew it was coming to an end. This didn't mean I was going to quit on myself or my relationship, I just had to work a little harder for the happiness.

Over the last month I really had to connect with myself. I learned about who I was through spending time alone and while being in a relationship. I had to uncover that people are completely different from others—with expressing love and showing emotion and it has nothing to do with you if they feel differently then you do. I realized I wanted to receive love the same way I give it, this just comes with understanding yourself. Some people will work to be able to give you the love you deserve and others won't, and that's ok. It's not easy to stop internalizing the reason the relationship didn't work out, but in reality you are not what they think of you. As much as you want to be mad at the person who let you go, it's just them showing you they aren't capable of giving you what you need (right now or forever). This doesn't make them a bad person, and once you become accepting of that fact, closure is much easier to find.

I know this is difficult to accept. Someone can check off all the boxes, treat you deservingly, and love you deeply and something can still be missing, something can change their mind, or they may not be ready to give you what you need. It is difficult to accept that souls are meant to untwine just as much as they are meant to intertwine. But until you find the one that will give you the love you need, give it to yourself.