Dear Digital Diary

Dear Digital Diary,

we accept the love we think we deserve.

At what point is this decided? To think you’re worthy of love isn’t something constructed overnight. Perhaps it’s a slew of things, like your relationship with your mother, the friendships lost and gained in middle school, the teenage love that broke your heart. All of it builds up into what you believe you deserve in terms of being loved.

“Deserved” is a strong word, too. It usually comes with the expectation that you are automatically owed something or that you have to earn it. The unconditional versus the conditional. While love should be unconditional, I’ve found it often has conditions.

And it’s frustrating because you could believe you have high self-esteem, that you know your worth, and that you’re picky. But as the story goes, you subconsciously accept what you think you deserve, whether that’s what you consciously believe or not.

I wonder sometimes why I believe I deserve scraps.

I was talking with my therapist, and we were discussing abandonment issues. I know several people who struggle with this, but I don’t feel I have it myself. I don’t worry people will leave. If it’s not meant for me, it’s not meant for me.

And she goes, “Well, see. There’s an opposite side of the coin. You don’t fear people abandoning you, but you fear abandoning them.”

Even after my breakup, I still think about him and how he’s doing. While I’m fine, I worry I hurt him somehow by realizing my standards and recognizing they were not being met. If he hurt me, that was okay. If I hurt him, I was at fault.

I’m not a people pleaser. I say no quite frequently, and more often than not, I’m called selfish. But I will stay in something longer than I should just so I don’t inconvenience others, whether that be a job, a relationship, or even a conversation.

In conclusion, maybe it’s not that I feel I don’t deserve a high threshold of love. Maybe I feel I have to be extraordinary in order to earn it. Maybe I’ve always seen love as conditional, and that’s what I need to work on. Or maybe it’s simply that my purpose is to help others realize the love they deserve. How lovely it is to show others that they are worthy of being wholly accepted and loved.

But also how lonely.