I Touch Myself Because I Love Myself

Hello, my name is Joselyn and I love myself. I am truly and wholly in love with MYSELF. I know that this is a strange way to start my introduction on the Loveless site, but you clicked on it because you thought I was talking about masturbation.  So who is the strange one here?  I think that my self-love is important for you to get in order to understand any post after this one.

Some of you were BIG fans of the Psyche posts from the past (:: waves hands and smiles ::) I am also Psyche. Well, mostly. I handled the Twitter page and blogs. I never did any poetry shit, because I don’t do poetry. I write from my heart and when I do, it kind of just comes out. I don’t have patience for poetry. Not that I am knocking it! The poems were great, but not from me.

So back to my intro, and why it is so important for you to understand why my love for me is so grand. Everything that I do in my life revolves around my love for self. I know that some of us were raised to not think of self, but to always do and think about others. I used to be that person too. I had to learn that you can only truly love or show love for others by loving yourself completely, without limits, as you currently stand.

Listen, I am fat. You can call it “plus size” or whatever the hell you want to call it. I am fat. I have rolls that hang over my jeans when I sit down. Hell, I have rolls where my bra cinches into my back. I am not the ideal size for America. But guess what else I am? Beautiful. Yep, I am beautiful. I didn’t always think this of myself. I used to beat myself up because I didn’t look like the Puerto Rican girls on the music videos. No one was knocking on my parents’ door to date me.

So what did I do to fill the void of a suitor?  I learned how to try new things.  Some things I loved and others I fucking HATED. It helped me realize that I love music (specifically hip-hop), concerts, art, Star Wars, makeup, heels, cars (not just the pretty ones), and as of late…comics.  I also learned that I hated dressing up, going to clubs, and pretending to be something I am not to get attention.  More importantly, I learned that the things that I am interested in allow me to be my own person without the approval of others. I didn’t need to ask for permission or acceptance to do the things I wanted. I have always been a little different to my friends, but because I loved me, THEY loved me. When you accept yourself and your flaws, quirks, and strange fascinations, others tend to think that you’re kind of amazing. Most importantly, you guide and choose your outcome in life easier.

When you love yourself, you don’t do anything without thinking of the end result and how it will affect you. To some people, this sounds selfish. I think it is just smart. If you know that you don’t like someone and are invited to an event where they will be, and YOU KNOW that you will not be able to remain sane, why go? Going is a lack of love for yourself and your comfort. Why introduce stress into your life? If you are not receiving the love that you think you deserve from your current partner, but you live for their “potential,” you’re stupid AND don’t love yourself. (I will not apologize for this.) Have I seen it happen? Sure, once. If you are unhappy being single and would rather put up with someone that makes you miserable as long as you are not alone, you don’t love yourself.

But I’ll speak more on that next week. 😉

So as you can see, I love myself (even when I hate myself).  I know that makes no sense to you, but I assure you that it can happen.  We are told to give of ourselves freely to others in hopes of touching others in a way to inspire and extract favorable emotions, but we tend to forget about ourselves in doing this.  I am not telling you to stop giving of yourself.  What I want you to do is ask yourself if you have done something for yourself lately.  Have you gone to get a massage? Bought a piece of art that you have had your eye on? Walked through the mall with your head high because you realize that you are enough?  If not, then do it!  Love for everyone else starts with love for yourself first.