pelumi

after coming to terms that i didn’t necessarily believe love didn’t exist and i was just diappointed and hurt at the fact that it was real and i just hadn’t experienced, i wondered what it was anyways? what is love? had i loved? and if if i didn’t, what was it? why did i think it was love? in addition to God’s definition in the bible (1 Corinthians 13: 4-7)

hook’s definition further broaden my understanding of the word. “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nuturing one’s own or another’s spritual growth... both an intention and an action... we choose to love”

i started to question every person i had claimed to love and who had mentioned they loved me. was i behaving in a way that would help them grow? were they doing the same to me? what did that even mean? spritual growth¿ what stunted the spiritual growth of others? had i done that before? was it done to me?

the ingredients of love :

care

affection

recognition

respect

commitment

trust

honest and open communication

when Hooks said that love and abuse cannot coexist, i was like ay “but my parents pls 🥺👉🏽👈🏽”. the main reason why it’s hard for some people to accept that is because we don’t want to draw the conclusion that people close to us didn’t love us. it made me uncomfortable to think that because of a number of little incidents, everything else went down the drain. i refused to believe that the one time i hurt someone i cared about meant i didn’t love them. it made me very uneasy.

when you cathect with someone (ie. invest feelings or emotions in them), we tend to confuse that for love. so as we hurt or neglect them, we still insist that we love them. care and affection can exist with abuse, but love cannot (don’t forget care and affection aren’t the only factors of love). with this definition, it was clear to me that i had loved very few times in my life and for very short periods. i was invested in people. i cared deeply for them. i did want to see them grow. however, i wasn’t doing it the right way. from the receiving end, i had come to the painful realisation that i had not been loved as much as i thought. i made excuses for connections to fit the definition of love, so i wouldn’t feel abandoned.

knowing this made me realise that those failed connections weren’t exactly love even though i thought they were. it meant that i hadn’t even experienced love for it to fail. i had given up on something i hadn’t even receieved yet. whenever i’m found myself complaining, whining “d 4 daben” ... someone always askes me “are you even ready?” i’m upset over something i’m not ready to get??? am i okay?😂😂