Easy to Love
Throughout the years, Love has become something I strive for in my daily life. Not just romantic love but platonic, familial, and self-love. Unfortunately, right now, the Love that I so desperately want to exist in my daily life seems to slip through my fingers so easily. Life in the outside world is scary, lonely, and so tough to get through, even minute by minute. With the ever-growing knowledge that nothing is going to get easier, I wonder if loving me is ever a true outcome.
I’ve grown up in a world where you have to be the best, perform at the top of your game. We have to top each other to stand out, to be worth something. So, that mindset is now ingrained in most of us. I’ve grown up thinking that if I was not at the top of my game 100%, I was not worth the attention. Not worth the praise. I know so many of us can relate. Panicking if you get a B instead of the expected A, messing up a dinner you’d planned all day, and making mistakes. A mistake means that you are not worth it. The reality of that statement haunts me.
However, mistakes are inherently human. Being perfect all the time probably means that you’re dead, or an alien impersonating a human. I would say a robot, but we all know how unreliable those can be. Earlier this week, I was spiraling because of those very thoughts. I am not good enough. I am not pretty enough. I am not smart enough. I am not doing enough. I am not enough. I am hard to love.
Those thoughts created a vacuum that I could not escape. As if I was being sucked into a whirlpool, water sloshing over my mouth and nose just enough to make me choke, but not enough to suffocate me entirely. Then I was thrown a lifeline. One of my best friends was talking to me during this spiral, about something completely different, unaware (but probably with a good idea) of what was going on inside my head- the storm that raged there. He said that love for me was “like putting on a warm blanket that was left in the closet.”
I snapped back to myself then. Feeling the water fade, and the panic slowly being replaced by a distant bubbling happiness. This friend and I have gone through hell and back together; he is the reason I am where I am today, the reason I still push to be the best that I can be, while still being kind to myself. And in that moment, I realized that maybe loving me isn’t hard. Maybe it's the warmth and joy, throwing a blanket on after being cold for so long. Maybe I don’t have to be this extraordinary thing that everyone sees, like lightning and thunder. I could be a radiant sun ray in the morning air, melting away frost and sparkling on dew drops. Gentle, calm, enough.
Suddenly, the world I knew as harsh and expecting took on a different light, even with just a simple sentence. Love is making mixed berry muffins at eight thirty in the morning because my dad is bringing me firewood. Love is baking sourdough bread for myself because I like the smell it leaves in my apartment. Love is my little sister bringing me flowers, just because. Love is my mom buying me household supplies and consistently checking in on me (though, let’s be real, it’s mostly my cat she’s missing). Love is my friends coming over to my apartment every day, just to say hi. Love is dedicating my time and energy to a production at our local playhouse. (My Fair Lady is playing in February, come see it, it’s gonna be good). Love is also knowing that, though my muffins did NOT turn out right, my friends will still tell me they’re good.
I love all those things, all those people, though they take time and effort; they exhaust me sometimes. My hands are left dry and caked in dough, I burn myself on my oven, and I get home late after hours of singing the same songs over and over again. It’s all hard, it’s all so hard to get into. But God, the outcome of my efforts? Unbelievably fulfilling.
So, I have come to the conclusion that Love is never easy in the sense that it doesn’t come without hard work and trials. But maybe I am worth the hard work, maybe I’m worth the effort. As easy as listening to Nat King Cole, donning an apron, and making baked goods, so I have a tangible piece of my love to share with everyone around me.
Love isn’t so hard when you realize that it is in your nature to experience it with your whole heart.
Elsie Vian
