What Is Love Without Losing It?

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t somewhat of a people pleaser. I grew up thinking you need to treat people the way you want to be treated - with that, I grew up believing that if you treat people with an abundance of love, you will receive whatever you put out. Obviously, the older I get the more I understand it’s inevitable for me to receive the love I give. Not everyone’s capable of it. But with that, I struggle. It’s easy to give a lot of love if I have a lot of love. But it plays into if I feel reciprocated or balanced. Many of my friendships have fizzled out because I invested too much of my love into them - which ultimately lead to my feelings of disappointment and imbalance. Once I started going to therapy, healing myself, and understanding what my needs are - I had to remove those friendships from my life. As peaceful as it’s been, I’ve been overwhelmed with the love I have for myself.

I’ve started to use the abundance of love that was easy for me to give to others, and pour it into myself - so much that it’s almost too much. When I say this I mean, I have so much love for myself that it has made me feel like I don’t want to share anymore. I’m almost greedy about the love I have for myself. Like why would I share this meal I made for myself when I can just have another plate for myself tomorrow?

I feel like I look at love and time as two things that exist at once. If I love you, I’ll give you my time. If I love myself, I have all the time in the world.. so why would I waste that time on someone I don’t know will make it valuable.

What was once a very healthy mindset has almost felt toxic, like I love myself so much that I know the time I give myself is almost too valuable to share with someone I’m not sure about. And the newer friends I get, the more I let those friendships float on the surface. What if the time isn’t valuable, what if it doesn’t serve me as much as my time alone serves me? Is it worth “losing” that time, “losing” that love? Just to hang? I am still figuring it out.