When Love Finds You

You ever get to a point in your life where you’ve been hurt so much that you either start to believe you’re incapable of loving anyone else, so you push people away, or you build a wall so high and thick that no one could ever break through? Yeah… I did both.

For a long time I told myself that maybe I was just better off alone. That love wasn’t for me. I’d have little flings, nothing serious, nothing lasting. It felt safer that way. But God had other plans. Because baby… I. AM. IN. LOVE. 😌

I thought I knew what love was before. I even married someone once 🤦🏾‍♀️. But that wasn’t love. Not even close. This… this is different. This is the love I prayed for. The love I always wanted but didn’t think I’d ever find. The kind of love that feels almost too good to be real. The kind that brings peace, not chaos. The kind that makes you want to grow, not shrink.

But before this love came, I had to face myself. I had to sit in therapy sessions and unlearn everything I thought love was (still learning). I had to face the fact that I thought love meant pain. I thought love meant staying when it hurt. I thought love meant constantly proving my worth to someone who never saw it. I thought love was supposed to break you down before it built you up.

It took me a long time to realize that wasn’t love at all. That was trauma. That was survival. That was me confusing attention for affection and control for care.

Therapy forced me to see the patterns I kept calling “normal.” It made me look at the little girl inside me who thought being chosen was the same as being valued. I had to learn that real love doesn’t hurt like that. Real love feels safe. It’s patient. It’s calm. It doesn’t make you question your worth.

This version of me is still healing 🧘🏾‍♀️. I still have moments where I flinch at softness, where I brace for the hurt that doesn’t come. But I’m learning to breathe again. I’m learning that love can feel like rest. That I deserve the kind of love that doesn’t break me to prove it’s real.

For the first time in a long time, I’m not running from love. I’m letting myself be loved right. And that, for me, is the real healing. ❤️