Love yourself, she said…

Today, I felt sorry.

It was quarter or so past 7pm and the class had dispersed out of sheer frustration. We had been waiting on our second lecturer for close to an hour until he messaged our class rep that he wasn’t going to make it to class that evening.

Very disappointing- but I took advantage of the situation and decided to share my pathetic love story to one of my friends whom I believed had a lot more insight about ‘love’ (if it even existed).

After narrating how I had to break away from my previous relationship, I paused and glanced right into her eyes, then I asked,” so what do you think I should do?” Truth was that I was expecting a more pleasing answer like,  you’ll do fine with time or the right person will come and you’ll be glad you broke up with him.

But No! Helen went straight to the point.

“First,” she said,” you need to learn to love yourself  then you can love anybody else.” It went straight to my heart, piercing. I wasn’t ready to hear about loving myself because I knew I was a long way from doing that. But when she said it, instantly I knew she was right. I needed to stop blaming myself for everything. I needed to understand that I deserved better.

Most importantly, I needed some self love.