I was a young man once. A kind, generous, optimistic young man who wanted to make the world a better place for the people he loved.

In his late 30s, the damage the people he loved had done for decades finally took its toll, and he died.

Gratefully, I've inherited his degree, wisdom, and desire to make this sick, broken world a better place. I've also inherited his trauma, and processing that has helped me to understand what love is and what it very much is not. And I've learned the very difficult lesson that nothing you do will ever be good enough for some folks, and that's on them, not on me.

In my 20s, I still believed the lessons my mother taught me: that love was defined by criticism, misjudgment, paranoia, and cruelty. And worse, that this was the only kind of love I was ever worthy of having.

Unconditional love is a font of peace, and so it's easier to miss than toxic, conditional, or possessive love. Easier even to miss if your only parent was incapable of it. But everyone deserves it.

And even if you can't see it, there's one person out there who may be giving it to you right now. Notice them. See if they give you anything you're missing, then ask yourself if you're still willing to go without it. Me? I love not getting into fights with strangers to make a miserable person feel better about themselves. I love making my own choices about who to date and how to live. And I love being able to define myself without apology or committee veto.

I've hated myself for so long, but I see now this was because I'd only ever seen GLIMPSES of who I was, hidden beneath all of the rot I had to cover myself with to be loved back. Now.... I find I like myself. I am very intense and run by a chaos engine. I have a lot of thoughts very quickly and that terrifies some folks. I'm also particular and meticulous, and I like to feel appreciated by the people around me for the work that I put into things. I am indefatigable, even in a state of complete hopelessness--that I've now seen to be true.

I used to have a playable character on FFXIV that I described as my alter ego. Not too long ago, a friend told me that this character was exactly like me. I dunno when I became my alter ego, but yay. 🥰