When Love Comes First

When love comes first,

"Don't leave without me" will be met with "Why would I?".

"Sorry I'm like this." would be answered with "No need to apologise, I understand it must be hard."

You wouldn't have to ask to be considered in their life decisions, you just automatically are.

You wouldn't feel dry and used, and every bit of love you give is replaced by love from them.

You wouldn't need to choose between being perfect or being left alone. They stay by your side, fights, warts, and all.

There are people out there who put love first. These people exist, and in more numbers than you think is possible right now, when you have given yourself so freely to people who just take your love for granted.

These are people who grew up in love, who had doting parents listen to every word when they were just learning to speak, jumbling their words and finding it hard to explain anything. They were taught to give, to understand, to not compare and compute the value of people. They were brought up without judgement by the adults they trusted with their innocence and vulnerabilities.

To these people, reciprocity of love is natural. They will care for you back if you show them love and attention. At the very least, they will not feel entitled to taking it all from you when they cannot give it back. And when they can, they give it a hundred percent.

And for people like us who feel yearning for this kind of love, who feel like we can love so much more than we have been given a chance to, to love better than we could imagine right now due to sheer lack of examples... we only need to stop settling for less. We need to learn to love ourselves so much that being treated less than with love, kindness, and tenderness will not look like a normal tolerated thing, but something that we simply cannot stand for and will have to move on from. We need to make the act of letting love come first the most natural thing there is, until it's the default of our world.

This was where I was five years ago, realising I was Beardy's girlfriend over Facebook haha, and funnily enough it was also where we were last night with friends! :p

Five years ago today, on the 22nd of December in 2010, Beardy and I made our relationship "official" between ourselves, after about 1 & 3/4 months of talking and sharing our lives online. I didn't know how transformative this relationship was going to be in my life. At the time it just felt very natural to call it a relationship because we felt naturally connected and committed to seeing the thing we had between us grow. Beforehand, I've had bad experiences of caring for people too much, who didn't really care about me the same way. I really had a warped perception of relationships and was going about things the wrong way until I lucked out and met him. We started out as just friends, until realising we were what the other was looking for, even if we didn't know it at first. I used to think he was an exception in the way he handles love but I sincerely hope and believe that there are many people out there who love like we do, and it's just not a thing that people are used to looking for (even me!).  I hope that the people I care for, at the very least, find a love that really works for them and fulfills them and lifts them up, and is plainly and simply reciprocal without needing mental justifications. I believe that whoever can love fully, deserves to be given that love back, and relationships like that can really emanate a love of love not only between the two people, but all around them, too. I'd like to live in a world with a lot of that!