I LOVE ME

words: Tali Beres | design: Catie Haugen

I’ll never forget the first time I decided that I wanted to be in a relationship. I was in 7th grade and had just started to use social media such as Vine and Tumblr, which had a lot of “relationship goals” posts. Seeing aesthetically pleasing videos and photos of in-love-strangers was suddenly intriguing. Consuming this type of media at such an impressionable time in my life didn’t necessarily make me feel pressured to be in a relationship or be intimate with others, but rather instead made me feel as if it was more attainable. I wanted to feel loved and desired. I wanted physical affection and affirmation. I wanted to give that to someone else as I was lonely and felt this would make me happier than I was alone.

At 16, I got into a serious relationship, one on which my self-esteem and confidence both became heavily dependent. The words of affirmation I received created the illusion that I was “fixed,” but it was not someone else’s job to do “fix” me. When we broke up, I lost myself for the first time.

My insecurities resurfaced. Not to mention, I hated being alone. I was reliant on having another person to be the other half of myself. I realized I was lacking a sense of self, as I did not appreciate myself as an individual, but rather part of a pair. And for a while, I blamed him for how I felt rather than reflecting on how I view myself. For months, all I wanted was to have what I had lost. I was hurting and refused to accept my reality which prevented my healing process. For months to come, I struggled to feel content being on my own. A year later, when I had found someone new and began to find that happiness that I thought I’d lost. When that ended, I was hurt, but not broken. Having gone through this before, I had gotten better at handling this type of loss. Now, my outlook on relationships has shifted completely.

The way that I view my past with intimate relationships is far different than how I viewed them at the time. I used to continuously think to myself when relationships would end, “Why me? Why does this have to be so painful?” And over time, I’ve realized that sometimes things do not happen to us, but rather for us.

In order to have a healthy relationship with someone else, you need to have a healthy relationship with yourself. Self-love is undoubtedly one of the most important things for your well-being, and although I learned this through my heart being tested, the lessons I learned have shaped me into the person I am today.