24th of May 2020
Good morning
I have been thinking about love these last weeks and the different faces of the phenomenon.
Love is something you should not talk about, not too much anyway!
Is that so?
I’m not sure. There are different faces of love and I think we should be able to talk about them all without shame.
There is love for your children and there is love from your children. Not everyone does get that kind of love. Some people never have children and others have not been perfect parents and don´t get their children’s love because of that.
Then there is love for another person, the one you fall in love with!
That is just as complicated as any other kind of love, and perhaps more.
You fall in love with another person, you perhaps get married and then you realise that the love was just a shadow of what you expected and off you go.
You fall in love with your mentor and you love him or her for the rest of your life.
You don´t have love for your parents and then you find someone else to compensate. Nothing wrong with that and perhaps the best solution in a bad situation.
Someone gave you your life and there is no guaranty that those individuals are the ones you want as your parents and you don’t want to love them. That is also fine.
Love is complicated, I admit that, but it is worth contemplating about and reminding ourselves about loving us, yes I am saying US, is perhaps the foundation. If you don´t love yourself you can´t love others. That might be difficult to understand, especially if you are in a co-dependent situation.
We are, some of us at least, taught that loving self is selfish!
Is love for you selfish? That is a great question which I am not sure how to answer. I am almost sure that I have not loved myself for a very long time and that has hampered me in giving my unconditional love to others.
Being a rape victim as a child changes everything. You lose your childhood and become a grown up in a second.
You become a teenager and you become 18 years old which means you are a grown up according to rules and regulation but there is a whole in your life. You never enjoyed childhood. You learned that love is ugly and painful. You might even look for love your whole adult hood without ever finding it.
You might have thought that children would love you and make you feel loved.
You might have thought that another person would make you feel loved, but you never found that one.
You might keep looking and being disappointed again and again because those you chose to love are not able to love, but they fit into your image of yourself.
Co-dependency is interesting to study. It explains a lot and it helps you to understand you and your situation.
When you find yourself worthy of loving you, everything makes sense and you tread the road to happiness.
Loving your life becomes true and easy.
Loving others becomes like drinking water.
Receiving love from others becomes safe and allowed to happen.
I have been working hard these last months to learn to love me.
I am on the road and everything is happening fast. I realise that I am worthy of love and with that feeling comes another one. I realise that it is ok for me let someone know me just as I am, all of me, not just bits and pieces. What a relieve it was to know I am worthy of someone knowing the true me.
Every day I sit down and make sure I am treading the road I want to tread. I look at myself in the mirror and think about how great this woman is. I am not ashamed of admitting my self-worth, not anymore.
It took a long time but I have arrived at the threshold and am slowly stepping over it, one day at a time.
I´m grateful for my life and I love it dearly. I would not be who I am if not for the love of dear friends who have never given up on believing in me even when I did not believe in myself.
Thank for being my friend.
Thank you for your support and patience.
And most of all, thank you my parents who gave me my life.
Hulda Björnsdóttir
My thoughts shared with you 