If I Could Find Love and Acceptance

In the past week, I've heard this sentiment from no fewer than four separate people, not including myself. In the course of my life, I couldn't even begin to count.

We accept the love we think we deserve, and of course, what we think we deserve is born from our experiences in the world. When we have experienced harm at the hands of others we often come to believe that we deserved it -- even when we know that some people are just shitty and the harm they cast out into the world is about them and not about us.

Having been hurt, and then coming to believe we deserve that hurt, can also lead us to distrust care. We expect the care to be conditional, or temporary, or fake. We wait for the other shoe to drop. How can there be care for me when what I really deserve is harm? When we believe we do not deserve care we often distrust the care that others show us -- even when we know that some people are good and our feeling of distrust is about us and not about them.

I've had a hard week in terms of physical pain, but a good week in terms of taking a break from life and recalibrating my mental health a bit. This morning I find myself in a place of self-acceptance for once, and I also find it easier to believe that others may really truly indeed think well of me also. I penned today's poem hoping to capture this feeling, this lesson, that I will no doubt need to learn and relearn again and again throughout my life as my self-acceptance ebbs and flows.

And here I offer it to you.

If I Could Find Love and Acceptance
11/4/17, #31

if I could find love and acceptance
within myself
then I could share it with you
accept it from you
trust it from you
believe it from you 

it has never been that I reject you
or your love
the trust I withhold from you
expecting your love to fade
your regard to dissolve
is not about you
but me 

if I could find love and acceptance
within myself
then I could trust myself
that I deserve
this love and acceptance
from you