Follow-up to Beauty and the Beast.

What I can say about romantic love can apply to platonic love. Far as romance goes, it is an important discussion to have with people of interest.

Too many of us have or still jump into it thinking that all or enough of your problems are answered. As long as you’re waking up with someone next to you, the things you’re still haunted by don’t need to be addressed.

That’s so far from the truth, I’d still be sick of myself about the years where I thought like that. Thankfully I gave myself peace for what I didn’t know.

I also can’t fully agree with a quote on the lines of “you can’t find love unless you love yourself.” Not only for its narrowed idea of love, but for personally experiencing many types of it before believing self-love was possible.

As I said in the last entry, “comforts are allowed to change with time and experience.” That was towards friendship, and the same is true in romance.

The change can be strong enough to look back at people you thought you would miss. When the fire didn’t hurt because you were used to it. No matter how you’re freed from the fire, you’re left to nurse the damage.

Then you heal. Some nerve endings may return. Not enough to feel the same way, but the readjustment gives you new ways to walk through life. Ways to show yourself and others that the scars are not anchors, they’re lessons.

Now you’re seen and heard for what you learned from them. People love you for it in a way that might be new to you. It’s new because it’s matching the safety, passion, and confidence that comes from knowing you survived.

Knowing that you’re ready for a long-lasting love.

D.F.