About learning to love

I´m happy. And it makes me even happier that I actually mean it and write it with a smile on my face. I´m sure you all know, how it is to get emotionally hurt by someone. This “asshole” called love often gives us a hard time. And I just went through this magical experience, so a few months ago my mood really reached ground zero. Or maybe even the leftover basement construction of it.

If you´ve read my last articles you have an idea about my life lately, but here are some details to get the whole picture. The relationship to my family gets more and more complicated, I moved to Hungary and missed my friends as hell, the company I worked for went bankrupt, I had to face the challenge to become self employed and then my love life reached a whole new level of shittiness. I thought I´ve found someone, who sees me for who I am and appreciates my personality and what I have to offer, until he told me that he was disappointed in me, he had hoped for something else… and he´s sure I can handle this the right way…. Honey, there´s no fucking way to handle a sentence like this the right way. It´s a knock out.

Our natural reaction when we feel hurt and emotionally tired is to hide and „take our time to recover“ which can often be more self-destructive than helpful. And I was very tempted to chicken out of life. But if there´s no one around who cares about you, you have to care about yourself even more and give yourself the love and devotion you need and deserve. I knew, the longer I sit around at home, the worse it will get and if I want a better life, I have to start building it from the scratch right now. You always have to respect yourself enough, to be willing to offer yourself the best chances. And that is not by giving up and hiding. So I duct-taped the pieces of my crushed soul, reminded myself of my qualities and all the things I´m proud of and I started investing in myself. Investing means, that I forced myself to socialize and network.

And after the first 10(!!) days — I´m not kidding — things started to change massively. It´s hard to describe this process, because I still can´t really believe it, but I got ten times as much back, as I invested. I met many great people, I got lots of translation jobs and now after some weeks I suddenly find myself being a part of a community, which cheers me up and gives me energy. I feel appreciated and cared for and it takes away the focus from the things that bother me. I feel that I can be that person, who I like to be. Funny, relaxed and not with the constant feeling of being messed up. My words are heard and they count, so I talk more. What I give matters, so I give more. People care and they showed me how much a warm smile, a hug and an honest „it´s so good to have you here“ can help. In the end they even managed to bring me into christmas mood, even though I really wanted to avoid christmas as far as possible.

My conclusion:

1. Whenever you meet a person who seems lost, remember that even a small gesture of kindness can be life changing.
2. If you don´t respect yourself, no one else will. Learning to appreciate and love yourself is essential. So care enough, to help yourself and then others will too.
3. Hard times often become even harder, before they get better. Sometimes you have to reach the bottom to figure out a way up.
4. When we feel appreciated, it brings out the best version of ourselves. Love and caring makes us better people. Which also means, that those who care enough to stand by even in our darker times, are those who get rewarded with our best sides and our joy in the end.

I always said that I came to Budapest to find a home finally. And for the first time in many years, I have the feeling that I entered the road to that goal. I´m insanely thankful for everything that happened to me in the last weeks. There couldn´t haven been a better way to start a new year.