I hope you accept love from yourself.
I hope you stop with the torment, the guilt, and the misconception that you aren’t good enough. It took me a very long time to accept the very concepts I’m wishing for you now.
It took me a very long time to realize that I wasn’t the awful words people said about me. It took time to trust in the world again, because for such a long time I thought it was made up of people who were only out to hurt you.
2023 taught me that the good in the world always outweighs the bad. I hope 2024 teaches you this same lesson.
I hope you never fall victim to the vile words he called you. I hope this year teaches you that not all men are the same, just like every love is different.
For a while, I used to think love was comprised of only the effort you put into it. Love is not that. Love is a feeling that moves you. It’s not a word you toss around when you’ve messed up and you hope that three little words are enough to salvage the relationship.
Love isn’t what continually tarnishes a relationship. Love is what builds it.
I think back to four years ago when I found myself divorced, living upstairs in my parents’ attic, wondering what in the hell the word ‘love’ even meant. Back then, I thought love meant someone loving me. I thought it meant male attention. I thought it meant it had to be given by someone else.
What I discovered is how my definition of love has changed throughout the years.
Love meant choosing myself. Love meant following my passions, however ridiculous and far-fetched they may have seemed. Love meant sitting down at a keyboard to pour my soul into.
Love meant accepting my flaws. Love meant accepting the stretch marks on my stomach and loving myself for them. Love meant liking myself enough and once I did that, I didn’t really care if someone else went out of their way to hate me.
That’s my wish for you, in the coming year. I wish you a year where you start to love yourself for the girl staring back at you in the mirror.
I hope you love her imperfections. I hope you love her flaws. I hope you love your dreams and your desires and for the love of God, I hope you love yourself enough to actually pursue them.
I hope 2024 reminds you of the girl you were before you lost yourself in those insecurities. I hope 2024 brings you back to your love and more than anything, I hope it rekindles that fire in you that he tried so hard to blow out.
See also: I Hate That I Always Want To Text You In December
by Courtney Dercqu