If I am not for myself, who will be for me?

While I believe this is the year I will find love, I then started thinking, "What do I do until then?" Do I sit around and wait? Do I close my eyes and hope? Do I let life pass me by while I'm waiting for someone to come into my life? No. Absolutely not. Wasting time waiting for something is exactly the opposite of what I'm looking for this year.

This year I've decided to look for love and hope for love and pray for love but that doesn't mean that there isn't love in my life right now. When I look around I see that I have my children who love me and my family who loves me and my friends who love me just as I am. I see that I have work that I love and opportunities that I love and the ability to spend time with people whom I love. If I just stop and take a moment, I will see that I am surrounded by love and that alone can provide me with comfort.

But it's more than that. Because in addition to being surrounded by love, I am also filled with love. There is a Hebrew saying, "If I am not for myself, who will be for me?" I think about this sometimes and I understand that before love can come into my life, I have to already have love in my life. I have to be the one who loves me more than anyone else. I have to look at myself with kind eyes and an open heart before anyone else can be brought in. And that self-acceptance and that self-appreciation and that self-awareness, while necessary, is so difficult, but also so worth the effort.

So maybe the thing to do today while waiting for love to come into my life is not to wait at all. Maybe the thing to do today is to look at myself anew and see what others see in me and love what others love in me. Maybe the thing to do today is not to look for love at all but to give love and receive love exactly in this moment and exactly as I am- for myself and to myself and by myself. Because maybe being by myself is exactly where I'm supposed to be today, so why not make the most of that independence and enjoy what the day has to bring. Why not dance and sing and laugh and cry and wring the very essence out of today and fling ourselves into tomorrow? Because today we have ourselves to love and that is the very most and best we can ask.

After all, this is the life.
-a

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