The Cost of Love

I have held the deep belief that if I do enough, I can make myself worth loving. I have always thought, that I am hard to love- and always desperately wanted to just be easy to love, and the only solution ever seemed to be to work hard enough and be a good enough friend, daughter, sister, etc. that it would make it a little easier to love me back.

Being vulnerable in relationships has always felt costly to me- I’ve often lived relationships in the context of “I’ll be your friend but you can’t be mine.” or “I’ll be your friend, and you can be mine, but I can only let you come this close.” there always has to be distance so that I can stay safe. So, those relationships where I feel so utterly exposed? Where the other person can see my trauma, my wounds, my anxiety at its highest, my depression at its lowest, my anger when it burns hot, my fractured ways of thinking, the lies I believe, the promises I make and then don’t keep, all my broken spots, my wrong choices, the times when I’m trying and my trying doesn’t feel like enough, my memories that are sick and scary, the way that those memories scare me, my refusal to feel, when I feel like I'm feeling too much, my deep longing for affection- both to give it and receive it, my humor at it’s wittiest and its sickest? All of that? How could I ask that of some one? To see me and still love me, and there not be a price to pay for it?

And the sad truth is, that no matter how hard I try to deny that I want it or need it, I’d pay a high price- gladly, because “I’ll be your friend but you can’t be mine” is a very lonely place to be.

So I think, I’ll make myself worth the effort it takes to love me, because I am too much- that phrase "I am too much" plays like a broken record in my brain. So I will do more, but I will be less. I will love harder, but require the bare minimum. I will pour out all of me, and be happy if I get just drops back.

And then I sit back in awe and wonder when someone pours a bucket of love on me, didn’t they know I was supposed to work harder for this? Didn’t they receive the memo that I’m hard to love but I’ll find ways to make it worthwhile? How could they just step over the caution tape and wrap their arms around me? But their arms around me feels like home.

They feel like home to me, a place where I want to stay and rest.

What if I woke up tomorrow and believed that I could be loved, damage and all, without there being a price I had to pay for it?

Who would I be without this fear?

What would life be like if I didn’t believe this is how God feels about me?