What My First Love Taught Me About Self Love
This is a love story. But it’s a love story that doesn’t get told nearly often enough — it’s a self-love story.
And I’m going to do my best to tell this story right, so I’ll start at the very beginning.
When I was little, I had this big fairy tale book. It was purple, the pages were lined with gold, and I remember each illustration being so glossy and colorful. My mom used to read me a fairy tale every single night, and she is so wonderful for doing so because I would interrupt her constantly.
I had too many questions, and the most common question was always the same: “sooooo what happened next?”
I never was quite satisfied with how “neat” those happily-ever-after endings were. I knew it was unrealistic, and I demanded to discover what happened after the glamorous balls and parties. (My poor mom, on the other hand, probably just wanted me to hear my stories and drift off into sleep like most kids would) But I couldn’t do that. I was simply incapable. I needed to know: when did reality kick in for all these princes and princesses?
On a logical note, I always knew there had to be more to these stories. Yet, simultaneously, some deep part of me fundamentally craved my own happily-ever-after. I am someone who, as much as I intellectually understand entropy and believe in chaos, deeply desires order and control. To illustrate this, I just finished my first year of college, and the highlight of my days were always coming home to fold my laundry, make my bed, and Swiffer my floor. It may seem mundane and silly. But I took comfort in knowing that I could predict the endings to my days. When I felt like the rest of my world was spiraling and crumbling, if only for a few brief moments (folding those clothes), I had control again. The same principle applies to why I took comfort in the fairy tales; I could always predict that happily-ever-after. Even though I understood it wasn’t the reality, I embraced those little, ever so fantastical moments of peace.
And, as I grew up, fairy tales were replaced with Instagram. I’m from Los Angeles, where the sun is always shining, and photos are always being FaceTuned. So online, everyone’s lives are polished, curated, and neatly packaged — in a virtual happily-ever-after if you will. Again, I could understand (on a conceptual level) that these photos, friends, and likes weren’t real, but that didn’t stop me from desperately chasing after them. I began to conflate fantasy with reality, and the results were toxic. I glorified fake figments on a screen. And, in turn, I began to hate the one thing I could confirm was real: myself.
Most prominently, I was consumed in the picturesque couples and relationships I saw online. I got this idea into my head that the only way I could love myself again was if someone else loved me. And, once that idea manifested itself, it became impossible to shake. I was consumed in how other people perceived me.
There was this one time I even remember being at a party. It was the summer after my freshman year of high school. I was sitting on the couch, and I looked at the boy next to me and asked him: “ever feel like everyone around you is a stranger?” He looked at me confused for a moment before replying “no.” And, of course, he didn’t. I felt like a cliche. We were at a party surrounded by people that we knew, so why would that boy feel like any of those people were strangers to him?
I used to think the problem with that story was everyone else besides me. But I’ve learned that it wasn’t that all those people were strangers to me; it was that I was a stranger to me. I didn’t yet know my own self (I’m not sure that I even do today, but now, at least, I’m more aware).
Sometimes, I feel so disconnected from my own body that I forget how to swallow and breathe. If this has ever happened to you, then you know that once you become aware of those automatic bodily functions the results are painstaking. You feel like you’re never going to be able to breathe or swallow normally again. But, of course, you always do. For me, it was in moments like these, that I deeply grew to resent my body. And my resentment was only heightened by the fact that I knew the resentment was irrational. My body was healthy and strong and had only ever been kind to me, but I desperately pushed myself away.
Then, I grew to hate my mind for twisting my thoughts to resent my body, and so the whole vicious cycle of self loathing would repeat and pile up onto itself — until it was too much for me to carry. I returned to the idea that I needed someone else. I wanted to give my body away, and I thought all my problems would be fixed if someone could just love myself for me — instead of me learning to do it for myself and by myself.
Even now, reflecting on all of this, I still have bad days. Days where I only feel like I even know myself (or that I’m real) because my fingerprint unlocks my phone. You see, the first time I fell in love I wish I had known and loved myself first. A lot of the poor decisions I made in high school were because I didn’t love myself.
I remember being at another party where a differnt boy told me that he defines “fun” as “getting as close to death as possible because we’re all just so fucking bored with life.” And, for a while, I tried to embrace that mentality. I put all of myself (and all my worth) into other people. By this point, I felt so alienated; I barely had anything to even give to my relationships with others. I thought this was fun, but, in reality, I was really driving myself to a breaking point.
When my first love left my life I didn’t feel like a whole person anymore. That’s a serious problem. In the weeks and months that followed, I would get sick to my stomach so often because I just wanted my body to be empty. The only time I had ever felt complete and full was when I was being loved by someone else. So when that person was gone, I didn’t know how to be complete on my own. That’s why I got sick. That’s why I spiraled. That’s why I thought that the only way I could have fun was to mistreat my body because I hated my body anyway. I was so far away from my happily-ever-after that it was easier to just keep moving as quickly as possibly and pretending as if I was fine. No one knew I was struggling — and you certainly wouldn’t have been able to tell from my Instagram.
At this same time in my life, the toilet in my bedroom’s bathroom was perpetually broken. The water would run as if someone was flushing it constantly, even when no one was. And no matter how many times a plumber seemed to come to mend the “weak pipes”, the problem persisted. It was in this peculiar context where the ringing and slushing of my toilet felt especially loud and throbbing that I experienced this heartbreak. The flushing noise throbbed in my ears, and the insignificance of my teenage melodrama was illuminated with a piercing sort of potency as I felt myself pathetically loathing indoor plumbing. If you haven’t realized, I don’t like not having control.
Love is a dangerous thing because, once you realized that there’s a place within yourself where another person can fit in, you open yourself up to the inevitable fact that you may never feel the same about yourself again. What I had to teach myself, however, was that this change doesn’t have to be a bad thing.
I’m working each day now to make amends with my body and to forgive myself for how I treated myself. My first love is the love that I have for myself, and it will always be that way. Every single day, I now remind myself how much I love myself. This is a new kind of control I crave, and it’s incredibly powerful.
Life isn’t a fairy tale or an Instagram profile. Life is humiliating conversations on couches at parties. Life is trying to stay sane as you fold your laundry on your college dorm room floor. Life is a toilet that seems to be clogged forever. Life is a whole lot of strangers and a whole lot of fakeness. But there is one thing that is always real: yourself. As much as you can doubt your validity, question your identity, and try to push yourself away, it’s useless. Your body is always with you. Your mind is always within you. And you, you by yourself, are full and complete.
#RelationshipGoals on Instagram fails to recognize the most important relationship of all: this relationship to the self. For me, I had to self destruct in order to reconstruct, and I know my journey towards reconstruction is just beginning. I had to scream and cry and feel absolutely hopeless to find my own sense of self. And I’m still learning. I’m learning to love myself. I also am beginning to love those around me, and this time I’m doing it right. The journey to self love doesn’t have to be one that you embark on alone. Because, with self love, everything else falls into place.
This is my happily-ever-after, and it’s messy, but that’s why it’s a True and Real love story.
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