People love us the best way that they know how, it may not be what we need, it may not be what speaks most to our hearts, but people love the best way they know how. And this applies to my parents, close friendships and to past relationships where I look back and think,“how could you not know that would hurt me?”, “how could you not know that made me feel insignificant?”, “how could you not know that made me feel so unseen and forgotten?”
But the truth is, that I can be mad as much as I want, I can wish that things would be different, I can even wish that certain things never happened at all, but the reality is that if these people knew how to love me better and if they could have loved me better, if it was in their capacity and in their self-awareness, they would have. And at some point I have to accept that, and let it go, that maybe it didn’t turn out the way I wanted, or maybe I would have been different or things would have been different if they had loved me the way that I felt like I needed to be, the fact is that they didn’t. Whether it was because they couldn’t or they wouldn’t, but at the end of the day, they didn’t know how to do it any other way, and they did it the only way they knew how. And I must come to the understanding that the extent to which people in my life loved me imperfectly, was a reflection of their capacity, and their experiences of love, and that does not mean that I am less worthy of love or unlovable.
At some point I have to find some level of acceptance with that and know that I am who I am because of the way that I was loved or wasn’t loved, this is something I cannot go back and change. But I can choose how to go forth loving myself and loving others from this day forward.