I am not hopeful for love anymore.

Because hoping you would feel loved because of someone else is like writing a goal on a napkin on December 31 while knowing that you don’t want to put in the work or pay the price that it takes to get to where you want to go.

Love is not a two-way street. It is an uphill road that only you can travel through, so eventually, you can be parallel to someone’s road uphill and then realize you can walk it together.

But until then, good luck repeating patterns, relationships, and scenarios until you realize you must love yourself first and last because that is the only chance you will ever have of knowing healthy relationships, and a healthy, abundantly generous self-love.

My heart is aching a bit because we are not together. My heart and soul are hurting from being second place yet again and looking at myself without any judgment, hoping that this time, I can actually see the love I have been looking for.

It is not only inside me; it is everywhere outside—how I talk to myself and if I have the capacity of setting healthy boundaries. When I want to say no but end up saying yes, when something doesn’t feel right and I am called dramatic and believe it.

For the first time in my adult life, I won’t look to the fairytale. Such is the easy path. I want to stare with open eyes and fire in my soul to raw reality. Reflecting on who I am, what I have attracted, and what I have created for life is my only chance of ever carving a different path, a more honest me, and a more loving person.

You know why he doesn’t respect you? Because you don’t respect yourself. This was hard for me to see, but enough is enough.

I am grateful for the learning adventures I have lived, but I don’t want to do it the hard way anymore. It doesn’t work; it hasn’t worked.

Can I wake up and truly feel grateful that I have myself? Can I honestly say with passion, “Thank God and this Universe that I am alive?”

It is okay if we don’t but we can start here. I ask God for love. He told me to look in the mirror, to stare into the clouds and the stars at night. “You can see it because you are love,” he said, “and we are all one.”

Grace
Belief
Faith
Action toward what is important
Patience
Love
Friendship
and
Fun

We can start practicing these values when we wake up. When we are tired. When we are fired up. Just like we have learned to seek love in others, I am absolutely convinced we can start learning to seek love within ourselves.

Thank you heart and soul for connecting with this universe to let me know that even in pain and uncertainty, we have never been more alive.