"I miss your faces. They remind me of God." - M. Night Shyamalan

What I’m realizing: You can learn to love yourself when you put your mind to it.

This might sound cocky, but it’s something I’ve learned over the past few years. Not to be dramatic or gain pity, but it’s been a rough few years for me. But I feel like one reason it’s been rough is because I needed to go through the process of learning to both love and like myself.

I learned how to date myself about two years ago. I learned how to take myself out and treat myself nice. I learned that it’s good to buy yourself popcorn at a movie you took yourself to. I learned that it’s good to pamper yourself sometimes, to do things you like to do just because you like them and you want to be nice to yourself.

I learned how to treat myself nice, but I also learned how to push myself in the healthiest of senses. I learned how to exercise properly, how to listen to my body, how to acknowledge and be gentle with my body when it’s telling me it’s tired. I learned what foods my body likes and doesn’t like. I learned when it’s okay to indulge and when it’s good to listen to my body’s dietary needs.

I learned how to be my own friend; first out of necessity because of the nature of my life at one point, and then because I actually kind of liked hanging out with myself. I wasn’t perfect, I never pretended to be to myself, but I accepted my flaws and chose to work on the ones I could instead of punishing myself for them.

Here’s why I’m bringing this up: I know how to love myself. What I don’t know is how to let other people love me.

I accepted me because I had to. I am stuck with me, so I decided to learn to love myself.

No one else is stuck with me. So what’s their excuse for loving me? Why should they stick around if they don't have to?

This sounds horribly, horribly dramatic, but it’s the brutal honesty of where I’m at right now. And if nothing else, I make my blog honest.

Over the past year, I went from having about three friends in the whole world to having to keep a schedule book so I wouldn’t overbook myself with dinners and such with friends to then adding on the luxury of meeting a man who wants to spend a whole lot of time getting to know me and love on me.

I say this not to be cocky, but to show how my life has changed.

I definitely don’t have any kind of sage wisdom or hallmark moment to show that I am handling these changes beautifully. If anything it is taking enormous amounts of guts and courage just to say that having people love and like me is really hard for me at the moment.

I struggle with this so much internally and now wanted to share a little externally because I know that getting things out in public writing is how I have learned to cope and deal with things.

So.

Hi, my name is Meagan, and I have trouble accepting that people want to love me.

Please do not, I beg of you, misread this: This is not so that people will go, “Aww, she needs a hug. And we need to be extra careful around her and show her that yes we do love her.”

No.

I say it to alert you that I want to accept your love, and in doing so, be vulnerable with you.

You have found something inside of me that you think is worthy of your love and friendship, and instead of shying away from that, I want to be abundantly thankful and accepting of that love and friendship, even though it is incredibly hard for me. I want to tell you in writing that I do not take your kindness of love and acceptance for granted, nor do I take it as a, “Oh yeah, of course they love me. I’m awesome.”

When someone shows me love or kindness – especially those of you who have stuck with me through thick, thin, moodiness, uncommunicativeness, and just plain weirdness – it shows me God.

There’s a line in one of my favourite movies that has stuck with me for years: “I miss your faces. They remind me of God.”

This is how I feel about anyone who shows me love and friendship. You bring me closer to God through you showing me love that I know comes from Him. Without Him, we wouldn’t know how to properly love.

I know this last fact because I have been loved with love that is His and love that is not from Him. And the love that is not from Him has done so much damage to me in the end. But the love of His children that is shown to me?

That love has changed me and is changing me and will change me from the inside out, always for the better, even when it hurts a little.

Hi, my name is Meagan, and while I might have trouble accepting your love, I am so overwhelmingly thankful for it.