It hurts more because I know, deep down, I’m the one who planted this seed of doubt in myself. I’m the one who keeps whispering:
- You don’t deserve love.
- You’re not enough.
- You’re broken.
- You’re too emotional, too messy, too unstable.
I keep listing every crack and flaw inside me, convincing myself that love is a luxury I can’t afford. That unless I become “someone” — successful, accomplished, flawless — I don’t deserve to be seen, cherished, nurtured.
I see myself like a tiny banyan sprout, struggling in dry soil. Sometimes wilting, sometimes managing a fragile green bloom. Too small, too weak to offer anyone shelter or shade — how could I ever dare to give love, when I barely know how to save myself?
Somewhere along the way, I started seeing love as transactional. Something you must earn, with achievements, with stability, with perfection. Something you only get when you’re good enough — not when you’re broken, not when you’re messy, not when you’re simply human.
And so I ask myself, over and over:
- How can I love someone, when I can barely love myself?
- How can I be anything but a burden?
- How could I not turn into a monster who hurts the very people who dared to love me?
- How can I deserve love, when I bring nothing to the table but these shattered pieces of a soul?
I want so desperately to be loved —
to be seen,
to be chosen,
to be cared for,
to be someone’s “soft place to land.”
But it feels so expensive.
So impossibly out of reach for someone like me — someone still patching up her own cracked foundations.
