I wake up every morning, look at the being curled up with me and say ‘I love you and I’m grateful to have you. Thank you for choosing me.’ Not because I have to, but because that is what I feel every moment I spend with them.
The being who curls up with me changes, the shape of my love doesn’t.
The way I held on to that love has changed.
I was once a me that when I sensed someone pull a way, I would hold tighter.
I was once a me that when broken up with, would believe that I was the problem, that I shouldn’t have ‘done this, said this, asked this’.
I also was a me that believed that I was never enough, I will not be enough no matter what I do, how much I give, so I gave it my all and some more.
Anxious attachment, I know it way too intimately.
When you have gone all your life wishing someone – your parent, your family, your classmates, your so-called-friends, just anyone, could love you for you, any shape of the love you see feels like it’s the love.
I was once in a 5 year long relationship, I thought that was love until it revealed itself as control and ownership.
I have dated many, I have been in a few romantic relationships, but this isn’t about romance, it’s about love and love can be of any form.
I had friends, family members, and oh so many others.
Somehow every ‘love’ I was given was a love that came with strings to bind.
- “I love you, act the way I ask you to because that’s what love is”
- “I love you, do what I think is best for you”
- “I love you, I need you to not express yourself”
- “I love you, I need you to fit my idea of a right person”
- “I love you, can you not chew like that?”
- “I love you, I need you to hold me while I try to fall”
- “I love you, I like things you don’t – but do them and I won’t hear a no”
- …
I was in every single one of them twisting myself, hoping they’d see me for me and stay.
Some resulted in sexual trauma, some resulted in emotional abuse, some resulted in me acting in ways I would NEVER act, do things I NEVER would – just because I thought maybe they’ll love me if I do more.
In every one of those, I broke in the middle from holding up this version of me that was doing exactly what they needed.
They didn’t have it for a bit and said ‘you’re too much’ and walked away.
I am grateful for my body, because that’s the only companion who never walked away when I didn’t fit into a perfect companion.
And it has now become a safe love that I always have.
It is the being that taught me what true love feels like – steady, present, warm, free, communicative, respectful and to top it all off – acceptance.
I no longer hold on,
not to love that isn’t here,
love that isn’t free,
love that needs me to shrink,
love that says I’m a burden.
Because, none of it is love.
NONE of it is love.
and Love isn’t held, it’s given.
Love isn’t performed, it’s present.
and I learnt after all this time that love is a being meeting another in gentleness and saying:
“I choose you now as we are. I choose ‘us’ that honors both of us.”
Here’s the truth: a me that doesn’t choose myself is not a me that will choose someone else.
And I am no longer here to ask or plead.
If there comes a time my choice is my well-being or someone else, I’ll always choose myself.
Always.
Not because I don’t care, but because I do.
I deserve someone who will choose me, day after day, in sunshine and in thunder, not because they have to, but because they want to,
and because they get to.
For now, the beings I wake up to sharing my gratitude are my body and my multi-species family.
One day, there’ll be more.
Harshini Busireddy 
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