Member-only story
I Once Thought Love Was a Guarantee
But it’s not, obviously.
“Why do you think you’re unlovable?”
Sometimes people throw this question at me. Most often, the words come from the lips of a therapist who barely knows me. Other times, someone entirely new to me will voice a similar concern. Once, a fortune teller stared me straight in the face and told me I needed to love myself more. I don’t know what telling sign she saw on my face, but she wasn’t wrong.
These fleeting words, so plentiful from the lips of strangers, have followed after me all these years.
I keep telling myself I’ll do something about it, but that day has yet to come.
What are you waiting for?
Lately, I’ve been thinking back to the old journals I piled up in my teens — and I wonder what will become of me if anyone else ever reads them. The odes to all my past almost-loves sit unprotected, all the ready to be unearthed if someone someday has a vendetta against me.
I remember being wishful and wanting and whimsical. Love was a game I wanted to try so desperately. I played at the chase of it all and got my heart bruised in the process. Sometimes the boys played along, so quick to train themselves in the art of flirtation. I stumbled on right alongside them.
