"it's your fault if you don't love yourself"

If I could tell you the truth about self-love, is that it is not something that you're able to find in yourself. We are told to soul search — to reach in the deepest parts of ourselves to salvage pieces and fragments that can affirm our sense of self-worth. 

Toxic body positivity, there's this fixation with finding beauty in our stretch marks like our bodies haven't weathered growth. That beauty is the only way we can appreciate ourselves for living and breathing. But isn't living and breathing, with all our health, enough?

Personhood becomes work. You must be working on yourself — becoming in perpetuity. Go to therapy, meditate, journal and/or throw out all your possessions. You can never just be.

I’d like to think we are supposed to learn self-love from family. But our families are human, thus imperfect and maybe prone to dysfunction. Found family is probably more apt. I saw how my friends demonstrated care. 

I didn't have to be the filial daughter or the reliable friend with a shoulder to cry on, I could just be. I could just be a social recluse with no real prospects. No career trajectory or a zest for life but a high-functioning depressed person who wanted to get through the week. I wasn't a particularly good friend. I was not someone who was responsive or had good entertainment value. 

But love is should not always be conditional. 

Irrespective of how I felt about myself or how I behaved, they always made space for me and they always believed I was deserving. I am a deserving person. They knew my morals, convictions and my nature. I didn't have to prove or do anything more.

Self-love is not innate. 

Self-love is referential. 

Self-love is relational. 

Self-love is radical.

I've attended my first poetry workshop and we had to pick a selection of words that we would find most difficult to write about. I chose "self-love" to journal. I don't really think any amount of daily affirmations can trick my brain into believing mantras of self-love. I can't say I'm happy but I am grateful for the people in my life and the opportunities that are revealing themselves to me.

I think that's enough.