"Finding Love Again" Part 1
I must share this. Because I love what Daphne Lee wrote.
"When I was a little girl, my mother never lost the opportunity to tell me how beautiful I was. I was her baby, the youngest of four girls, much younger than my siblings. I was a cute chubby child, but I was hardly beautiful. Still, my mother must have believed I was - don't mothers? In any case, because she told me repeatedly that I was beautiful, I believed I was and carried on believing it. All my life, I have been perplexed when people disagree with me on this point!
I'm 40 now and I think I look roughly the same as when I was three. I still think I'm beautiful - a few months ago. I even started my own fan club, for a joke I hasten to add, but I acknowledge that there had to be a degree of cheek (which I've always believed is a form of self-esteem and self-love) involved.
I can't argue with self-love. If you don't love yourself, you might as well give up on others loving you. (I'm also all for blowing your own trumpet - just the occasional gentle toot, so long as you can play in tune, of course.)
This piece is about finding love again and the reason I was asked to write it is because I recently lost love, in more ways than one. Eighteen months ago, my ex-husband left me for another woman. He ceased to love me and, for the first time in my life, I stopped loving myself. I thought I was ugly and no worth. I was a failure in all ways. The other woman was younger, sweeter, thinner.
I found myself trying to turn myself into her, physically. I went shopping for the same sort of clothes she wore. I grew my hair, I even considered getting a pair of glasses like hers (I have 20/20 vision). What made it so ridiculous, now that I look back, is that this woman has acne and dresses like a 13-year-old. She does have lovely silky hair, though, but I must have been seriously off my rocket to have wanted to look like her.
For the first six months after my husband moved out, I would have done practically anything to win him back. I was eager to acknowledge the part I played in the breakup. I wanted him to tell me what I could do to make him love me again. I believed our relationship was worth saving and whatever was wrong about it could be made right. I was also willing to believe that I was the sole cause of the failure of our marriage. Okay, so I knew deep down that I wasn't entirely to blame but I think the circumstances of the split addled my brain and turned me into an insecure, self-doubting shadow of my real self.
I don't know what I'd have done if my best friend had not been there to constantly offer support in the form of a listening ear, kind words, and sensible advice. Best of all, she kept reminding me that I wasn't a bad person who deserved the heartache. She reminded me that the reason why she was on-call 27-7 (she lives in Singapore) was because I'd been there for her 24-7 too. ..."
"When I was a little girl, my mother never lost the opportunity to tell me how beautiful I was. I was her baby, the youngest of four girls, much younger than my siblings. I was a cute chubby child, but I was hardly beautiful. Still, my mother must have believed I was - don't mothers? In any case, because she told me repeatedly that I was beautiful, I believed I was and carried on believing it. All my life, I have been perplexed when people disagree with me on this point!
I'm 40 now and I think I look roughly the same as when I was three. I still think I'm beautiful - a few months ago. I even started my own fan club, for a joke I hasten to add, but I acknowledge that there had to be a degree of cheek (which I've always believed is a form of self-esteem and self-love) involved.
I can't argue with self-love. If you don't love yourself, you might as well give up on others loving you. (I'm also all for blowing your own trumpet - just the occasional gentle toot, so long as you can play in tune, of course.)
This piece is about finding love again and the reason I was asked to write it is because I recently lost love, in more ways than one. Eighteen months ago, my ex-husband left me for another woman. He ceased to love me and, for the first time in my life, I stopped loving myself. I thought I was ugly and no worth. I was a failure in all ways. The other woman was younger, sweeter, thinner.
I found myself trying to turn myself into her, physically. I went shopping for the same sort of clothes she wore. I grew my hair, I even considered getting a pair of glasses like hers (I have 20/20 vision). What made it so ridiculous, now that I look back, is that this woman has acne and dresses like a 13-year-old. She does have lovely silky hair, though, but I must have been seriously off my rocket to have wanted to look like her.
For the first six months after my husband moved out, I would have done practically anything to win him back. I was eager to acknowledge the part I played in the breakup. I wanted him to tell me what I could do to make him love me again. I believed our relationship was worth saving and whatever was wrong about it could be made right. I was also willing to believe that I was the sole cause of the failure of our marriage. Okay, so I knew deep down that I wasn't entirely to blame but I think the circumstances of the split addled my brain and turned me into an insecure, self-doubting shadow of my real self.
I don't know what I'd have done if my best friend had not been there to constantly offer support in the form of a listening ear, kind words, and sensible advice. Best of all, she kept reminding me that I wasn't a bad person who deserved the heartache. She reminded me that the reason why she was on-call 27-7 (she lives in Singapore) was because I'd been there for her 24-7 too. ..."
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