Um, okay. So this post is going to be really embarassing. But I’m doing it in the interest of complete honesty, because I think most of the time, people, including myself, aren’t very honest. We move among each other, brushing up against each other, and we never seem to really touch, because we’re each contained inside a little shell. We’re like a bunch of mollusks, oozing a protective layer that prevents anyone else from really seeing what’s going on inside our hearts. Since we tend to keep our neuroses as private as possible we assume everyone else is thriving inside their shiny shells, that their personal soundtracks are all happy songs while we’re listening to badly scratched Hank Williams records on a record player with one busted speaker. We forget that other people are big balls of squishy, gelatinous goo just like ourselves.

So here’s what’s really going on. I had this, like, major meltdown last night, because I realized something really awful about myself: I don’t love myself. Somewhere along the way, I forgot how. Or maybe I never really learned. Sure, I know how to feel sorry for myself. And I’m really good at defending myself. I know how to behave towards other people in a way that makes me unobjectionable, or even downright charming. I know how to convince people that I’m smart or talented or “different” in a way that makes me seem cool and special. And there are a lot of things about myself that I think qualify my demands that other people love me (i.e., I’m a good cook, I’m cute, I’m funny, I never fart in public, I make good grades, whatever).

But when it comes right down to it, I don’t really love myself. At best, my self love is conditional, and it could be argued that conditional love isn’t really love, it’s just approval. I’ve sorta known this was going on for a long time, but I didn’t want to admit it, because it sounds so pathetic, like some kind of hyper-extended teen angst. I like to idealize myself as a compassionate, delightful person, who, of course loves herself because she’s so strong and amazing, and so gosh-darned easy to love. And you always hear people saying that you can’t love anyone else if you don’t love yourself first. In fact, I’ve actually said that shit to other people. So, not only am I a big, fat, hypocrite, I’m clearly not the pillar of compassion and dignity I try to pretend I am, because I’m viciously exacting, and bitterly unforgiving towards the one person that I actually can’t live without- Me. When I disappoint myself, or when I feel like I’ve disappointed someone I care about, I tell myself things that I would never allow another person to say to me without a fight. Why?

Realizing that you don’t love yourself, that you acutually kind of hate yourself, is like being in an arranged marriage to an unreasonable, abusive jerk. Only you can’t get a divorce or even run away, because the abusive jerk always finds you. And that jerk is waiting for you whenever you sober up or turn off the television, arms crossed and foot a-tapping, lips flecked with scorn. The thing is, last night I had this cataclysmic “I-CAN’T-TAKE-IT-ANY-FUCKING-MORE!” moment. I realized I’ve had it with listening to all the meanness, I’m so tired of feeling like I have to try so hard to be loved by myself and everyone else, like love is something achieved, a trophy I could display on a shelf as tangible evidence of my self worth.

But realizing that I don’t love myself is hardly a fact that endears myself to me, and this is where it gets tricky. The mean part of myself says, “Geez. Get a grip. What are you, fourteen or something?” Which makes me feel like a big loser, and compels me to pretend that everything is fine and I don’t need to do any work on myself because I’m perfect, see, I’ll show you, and then you can love me, please love me I’ll try really hard to be perfect from now on I promise (just please don’t be mean to me anymore, please, please, please!) What I realized last night is that the mean part is the part that needs the most love. The mean Me needs to be loved in spite of her meanness. She needs a hug, a foot massage, a glass of really expensive wine, a box of chocolates, a trip to Hawaii. She needs to be let off the hook for feeling like those things must be deserved in order to be enjoyed. But that hook is in deep. The skin has grown up around it, and there’s like this big, infected, boil-looking thing where the hook is. Getting it out is gonna be pretty gross, I think.

But I have to do it. Not loving myself has been the source of so much unhappiness, the cause of so much destructive behavior. If I’d had a friend who was in a relationship with a person who treated her as badly as I treat my self, I would have had an intervention for her. But I’m not my own friend. I’m like my own drill sergeant. Or slave driver. Or like the mean kid on the playground that follows you around poking you with a stick and telling everyone you’re a gay-wad or a douchebag, or a pee-drinker.

So, I’m embarking on a journey. And the destination is my own renovated heart. I want to fall in love with myself.

Where do I begin?