…But first, you must love yourself.

My 2017 started off rough, tough, and painful. Little did I know, that was minute to the place that i’m in now. LAWD I would KILL to be back in that situation where the only thing that troubled me was school and wondering if my car would start that morning.

Now, I have never been much of a crier (you reciprocate what you see and I have seen my mother cry MAYBE 5 times out of my 24 years of living) and that’s mostly because I kind of internalized that crying was NOT a sign of strength. No one told me this, but this is simply what I thought. I used to pride myself in telling people “you’ll probably never see me cry”, but THIS YEAR. Boyyyy. Listen, I am pretty sure I started off 2017 crying right on January 1st and have not missed a week yet. I had a revelation that my tear ducts were backed up and they needed to release all 60% of water that the human body is made up of. And that’s also how I lost all of my weight this last semester. I am absolutely convinced.

Me from 1993-2016.

Me in 2017.

Throughout all of this crying I started to seriously deepen my relationship with God and I also started to be more purposeful with my love/loving. At this time, I so desperately needed the people who I loved to know that I loved them so I started reaching out to them more through texts, little messages, random gifts, etc. But at the same time I so desperately needed to learn more about myself so that could know why I operate the way I do- why I give up so easily sometimes, why I can’t keep a relationship, why I can’t be vulnerable and open up, why I downplay or underestimate my strength/knowledge, why can’t I let anyone in, etc.

I am a flawed individual, I’m not perfect, but my perfection lies in God. I knew this, i’ve always known this so I knew that digging deeper to learn myself was going to open some cans (yes, plural) of worms that I vowed, at a young age, to never even bother anymore. One of them being my my father. Not gon lie, I didn’t want to reach out to him because i’ve never been a “daddy’s girl”, never wanted a man like my father, fathers day was another hallmark holiday to me, when he left us back when I was 15/16 I thought that was freedom ticket. Honestly, truly. But as I grow and mature in my 20 sumthins I realize that I need him now more than ever because he holds the key to 23 of my 46 chromosomes and I can’t unlock the meaning of them without him. Turns out that it’s actually be easier than I thought it would be because operating with the love of God makes everything easier. Still a process though…

So throughout all of this time some things started to get better, school, my car situation, my relationship with God, but other things start to change. My spiritual journey has me visiting other churches and at the same time i’m in the process of trying to remove my attachment from a guy and this is turning out to be the longest and most draining process in 2017. Not going to lie, I thought that I was going to handle it A L O T better than I am, but I just contribute it to being apart of the process. After reviewing our relationship over and over again trying to see what I could’ve and should’ve done differently to put us in a better position, I only came up with one thing. I wasn’t properly loving myself first. You cannot truly give pure, unaltered, unconditional love unless you have it for yourself.

Now I understand that these past 6 months of happy, sad, hot, salty, and draining tears have only been helping to release the old me that was full of anger for no reason, rudeness, doubt, insecurities and so much more. I know that it’ll be a long process that starts with continuing the change in my mindset, I know that there will still be tears (simply because I just got done having a Kim K. ugly cry 5 minutes ago), but I also know that God’s love will continue to hold me together. Also, God has placed some of the most amazing people in my life to draw strength from. I am absolutely SO incredibly blessed beyond measure…even through this breaking period.

So, If you’re close enough and have felt or seen a shift in me, just please be patient with me. I don’t intend on hurting anyone through this process, but I MUST learn how to love myself and sometimes that means that I have to do some things on my own before I announce them to the world. That means I have to do what my heart desires, within reason. lol. That means I have to re-learn myself everyday and love whatever i’m presented with. Strength and weakness. Beat and dry face. Freckles and blemishes. Tears of all kinds. Hurt/pain and joy/happiness. Flaws and all. Gotta start with loving me.

 

Y’all, please continue to trust the process.

– With love, Muffy