To love and be loved

You know, I've spent the past few days/weeks feeling hurt and angry, but also ashamed that I care so much about these things and about people who don't care about me. It felt rather embarrassing to be asking myself why these people didn't care about me. It felt like I had failed somehow. I hadn't been kind enough. I hadn't been nice. Or good. Or friendly. I had failed.

But it's not enough to be any of these things, isn't it? Sometimes, people just don't care. And that's okay. Because there are people who are nice to me but whom I don't really care too much about. So if I can do this to others, why was I so bothered when others did it to me?

Anyway, while dealing with this hurt and anger and shame, I also felt a sense of guilt. A voice in my head would say: "But what about the people who do care?" And it's true. My hurt over people who didn't care seemed to do a disservice to those who care and love and make me feel like I'm the luckiest person on earth.

The beginnings of this blog were just starting to form in my mind when I checked the Word of the Day on dictionary.com. A few years ago, a friend and I made daily posts about the Word of the Day as a way to keep us creative or motivated or busy, I suppose. I do still check the site and try to draw a little doodle or write a little something about the day's word.

Today's word happens to be diffident. Meaning shy or lacking self-confidence. What better word to describe me?

A month and a half or so ago, I was planning a visit to my father's. He works abroad and the visa lets me stay a maximum of 30 days in the country. Over the phone, he asked me how many weeks I can stay there for and I think I said two or three. So he asked if we can change the date I was to land there just so I could stay a whole month. And I immediately thought, "Oh I didn't realise he'd want me there for that long."

And then I felt ashamed. How bad was my self-confidence that I didn't think my own father would want me around for more than a week or two? After all he has done that leaves no doubt in my mind that he loves me? Why was I always seeing myself as a nuisance, a burden? Someone others didn't want to deal with? Someone who should take as little space in other people's lives, as little of their time?

That call with my father reminded me of all these moments with a friend who has tried to convince me multiple times how worthy I am of friendship, of love. And I promised myself then that I would truly believe this, even if my mind told me not.

That's the thing about anxiety, I suppose. It makes you doubt everything. It warps your sense of self-worth. It makes it difficult to love or even like yourself. And I know that going forward, these thoughts won't disappear entirely. But I think I truly do owe it to those who care to be better, to try harder to accept their love. To see myself in a better light.

And so, this post is for those who care, for those who love me. It feels so bold and show-offy to say that, to admit that there are people who do love me. But by some miracle, I do have family and friends who don't hide their feelings, who don't make me feel like a failure, who love and love and love. And to those people, I really do have to say thank you, because it is this love that has kept me going, especially these past few months.

And because this post is going in no real direction, I will end it by saying this: in the face of adversity, it's difficult to look beyond the hurt or pain or challenges. But there will be moments, no matter how small, that will make you realise just how loved you are. And from this love, you will find the strength to hold on for dear life and get through whatever shit you are going through. When a friend asked me how I kept it together through the shit that I dealt with the second half of 2023, I had no real answer. But of course, there's an answer: it was this feeling of love that kept me going.

(P.S. This post isn't a call for attention. It's not a "Boo-hoo look at my sad life. Feel bad for me.")