Value

Everyone knows it.  We have all heard it.  Your value lies within you, not in what others think of you.  Your value is the value that you put on yourself.  It's what you have made of yourself and what you see in yourself.  So, if I let a relationship change the view I have of myself, I have let that relationship devalue me.  

Well, that is just what I did. Somewhere along the way, I allowed my views of myself to change.  Some of it was negative.  Being cheated on can really do things to your perception of self.  I didn't handle things in a way I would like to have thought I would.  I would also like to think that if it happened now, I would handle it differently.  But, putting a face or action on heart break is a big, lofty and probably useless task. So, instead of worrying about what I would do if it happened again...  Instead of playing out how I would act if my heart were being broken right now, I am going to try to forget.  I can't forget it all.  But, holding on to the pain and regret forces me keep reliving it.  And thinking about what I should have done differently keeps the feeling alive in my tissues.  Occasionally, I think about it and tears swell in my eyes.

The tears normally don't come out of a longing.  I don't think about my ex and get sad from missing him very often.  I have to admit, that is what I am thinking about now.  Remembering the good times is hard.  But, like I said, I don't do that often.  Mostly, I cry because I am realizing that I never valued myself in a way that I should have.  I didn't do it before my relationship.  I didn't do it during.  And, though I am getting better, I don't do it enough now.  I hold back my feelings and I bite my tongue for fear of playing into a characterization or stereotype of an over-emotional, over-feeling woman.  Men get to value themselves and not be considered emotional.  This is my hang up.  I hold my feelings back because of my fear.  I hold back, because I don't value my thoughts and wants enough.

So, sometimes the tears come because I am growing.  And, growing hurts.  In order to grow, you have to step up face-to-face with your fears, insecurities and flaws.  You have to get a good look at them.  You have to acknowledge and memorize your faults, so that you can take them down.  Right now, I am staring down the part of me that wants to be loved.  I am considering it a flaw, because it's consuming me.  So, I have to look at myself and I have to say ... "Maybe he did love you and maybe he didn't.  Maybe you are right; maybe he cheated because he didn't love you."  I will never know.  And as cliche as it sounds, I have to figure out why knowing whether he loved me or not is more important than figuring out how to love myself as best I can.  I work on my masturbation form all the time, because I know no-one can love me like I do.  Why has it taken this long to translate and transport that message from my vagina to my brain?

Lately, I have been getting upset when a guy rejects me or when I feel rejected.   But, I pay little mind to the fact that I reject myself daily.  In paying so much attention to the longing for love and affection, I am ignoring the fat that I can give myself the greatest love of all.  The way a person feels about me can change from day to day.  I know this, because the way I feel about others changes just that often.  My goal now is to stop looking for that affection.  I know what I want and I know what I need.  And, the love I need is not going to shine on me in one great moment from the eyes of some tall handsome lover.  It isn't going to knock me off of my feet in a grand romantic gesture.  It is going to slowly trickle into my life.  It's already started, actually.  It is expanding my muscles and making my sides ache as I type this.  My self-value is growing more and more every day, with the realization that I deserve to have what I want, but even more-so, I deserve to get what I need.  Even if it hurts like hell.  I just have to remember why it hurts.  I have to remember that the pain I'm feeling isn't a result of the bad things that I have allowed to happen in my life.  It's not the pain of a stomach full of past sorrows.  It's the gut wrenching pain of purging all of those sorrows.  It's not a pain that will sit stagnant in my gut.  It's not passive.  It's very active pain.  It's pain in motion and unlike the weight of being full, it won't move into other areas, creating fat.  One way or another, this weight will pass.  The fullness will empty and where self-awareness creates room and space, self-love will fill the void.