The day I finally met The One.

Break the news, I have been dumped. Again. It has been the third time this year. 

There is not much left to say once you hear “you suck”. Even if it was very subtle, and it could have barely been heard across the room, those words went straight to the insecurities box of one’s brain. I have seen the look in their eyes as they stared at my body. I have felt their disgust in the way they would clench their fists. I have felt their hate flowing through my veins. I felt their arrows at the back of my spine as I walked away. They would even smirk at the potential stumble of my two left feet.

This is a love story. Do not expect a tragic romance though. I do not know if this has ever happened to you, but I have spent most of my life thinking that The One was going to show up unexpectedly. I have swung across supermarkets and vintage book shops hoping that this person would be around the corner. Picture this for me: casually placing our hands on the same item. Sharing a quiet fraction of a second before I could mumble “i’m sorry”. And there you have it: found perfection at the aisle of mangoes. Love at first sight they say. Well, let’s be honest. I would probably scare them off by staring for too long. There is a fine line between a seductive glimpse and a creepy glance, and I do not reckon I master the first one. 

In other words, I have not had much luck when it comes to finding The One. I thought I did, but it turned out that I was, once again, wrong. “You are not worth it”. This is the third time this year that I have been told such things. I tell myself that my choices need an upgrade. I know it is easy for you, an outsider, to think that I am wasting my time by spinning over this. You may be right. See, there’s this one time I thought they were right when I was told “you are too much”, and you reminded me that there is no such thing as being too much, but rather, having too little skill to carry all that you are? I did pick myself up after that. However, remember that one time when “you have no spark” threw me back to emotional turmoil? Well, I have not recovered from that yet.

I am telling you all this because you asked me. Oh, you do not remember? Well… This is not new to me though. They keep me feeling like I do not matter, like “it’s nonsense, get over it”. I have been here before, so I know how to bounce back. It takes a bit of time, but then I understand it is not something I am to blame for. Instead, I know this is not in my head, but theirs. All these “no one is going to love you” talk, or “you could never be interesting enough” comments, are just thoughts. Thoughts that are sharp indeed, and that feed the worst demons that can inhabit us. But thoughts on their own. This is not the truth. And yet… This is not something I would let someone tell me. Why would I let them? 

I guess it’s hard to block them when the only people you see are yourself. 

Yes. You read that right. It has been me. All along. I dumped myself. For the third time this year. No other people. Just me and my troubled mind. No one has been rougher with me, than me. No one has hated my body more than I have. I have felt how lost they were because I have been lost myself. That’s how I treated myself as trash: by looking at myself and hating my reflection. 

If I already have a hard time battling self-sabotage, imagine what I do with other people’s opinions about myself. Whatever positive feedback I could get from others, I would not believe it. I would block anything nice they could tell me by fearing they would be dishonest. That is why it is so easy for me to reject myself. I have believed for so long that I was not deserving of being treated right - I completely swept away all possible ways of loving myself.

I reached a point where my own judgment was so unreliable that I could not even remember the way I looked. To lose track of oneself is to become numb. You know you are supposed to feel this and that, here and there, but deep down you are just pretending. And I have never felt more lost than I have felt this afternoon when the words “you suck” escaped my mouth. I did tell the person in front of me; I did hear it from the person in front of me; I did feel it tearing myself up and then, that is when I had enough.

I am crawling from rock bottom to take responsibility for the ways in which I have poisoned myself. Reality check: who could love you if you did not? An answer to this could be that many people can love you even at your lowest. But this is not the point. Imagine your life is a play. When the lights are off and the theatre is empty, who is there for the rehearsals? Tell me, who is there hanging the poster by the main door? I am the only character that stays for the entire play, knowing the end and still being surprised at its marvelous turning points. 

This is a love story. Therefore… Why would you wait to meet The One, when you have it right in front of you? After so long, I can claim myself back. I do not want to be part of any other treacherous plot against my own persona. I choose to love myself, from today and onwards.