Chapter 1: Present Day
Love. Probably the most complex four-letter word out there. I think it is safe to say that we were raised to believe that true love occurs only once, and it only occurs once we feel that “spark”. I partly blame Disney for making me believe in such love that I should be able to find my prince charming and be madly in love with him within a day or two. The other part of the blame goes to my cultural values. We South Asian women are told repeatedly that the main purpose of our life is to become this soft-spoken, thin, and fair woman who is ready to cook whatever her husband desires. It is quite a shock knowing that these beliefs are still circling around us when it is 2023, but I guess some things are not meant to be changed since history will always be HIS story.
It was this pressure of finding “the one”, just like in the movies, that made me become a girl who would go above and beyond for any guy that claimed he loved me. It took me so long to figure out how dangerous it could be to give your all to one person. Giving all of your heart to someone is no joke since now they have all the power to do whatever they like with it. At one point, I was not sure if I was loving wrong or just loving the wrong men because I always ended up hurting myself emotionally. It was all rainbows and sunshine in the beginning, of course, but as time went by I found myself smiling less and crying more.
Another thing I found in common in all of these relationships was how I viewed myself. I would look at myself in the mirror and be completely disgusted and ashamed of myself. It was like I was wearing rags, even though it had nothing to do with my outfits but merely how I viewed myself. It took me over 10 years to realize that I kept seeing myself in rags because I was feeling guilt-ridden for letting these men treat me like trash every time. I realized that I was embarrassed that I stooped this low and was okay to let these people stab my heart over and over again when I did nothing but take care of their hearts.
At the age of 26, I sat alone in my room after the biggest heartbreak, thinking why do I let myself be in these rags? After some time, I realized I reminded myself of the princess from “The Paper Bag Princess”. And that is when it hit me. Thank you, Robert Munsch. The ending of that story was the message that should have been my inspiration along. As a child, I just found it funny with the ending, but now it felt more relevant than ever to my life. I do not want to spoil the story of one of the best children’s books but to keep it simple, I need to put myself first for once and not care about others. I needed to stop finding validation from others’ “love” towards me and I definitely needed to stop believing in the noise that society gives us about the idea of love. Once I have mastered this, it is a complete do-over for me. I would be going from rags to riches. The solution is for sure time-consuming but straightforward. Instead of finding love elsewhere or finding love to match what the movies show us or what my culture wants, I needed to find my love for myself. It may sound a bit cheesy, but for someone who is lactose intolerant, this solution was going to be my saviour.
Ironically, I have to give credit to my first actual true love heartbreak for giving me this valuable lesson. Everyone would say that your ex will be a life lesson but in a negative way. For me, even though I was completely broken about the relationship, this particular ex taught me so much about myself. He was able to show me a lot of light during the good and bad days, and I am forever grateful for him. So here is the story of how my first love’s breakup made me go from rags to riches.
Although I say he is my first love and all, he was not the first guy I dated. It took me a couple of terrible relationships to realize that I never loved those people. How did I know? As bad as it sounds, my love for them was unconditional. My love for them had its reasons, such as for the label, to make my parents proud, to not be the only friend who is single, and so many other reasons that should not have even mattered. However, with this last relationship, my love for him had no limitations or conditions like the others. I did not even expect anything back from him other than to be with me wholeheartedly. Nevertheless, it is time to unravel the stories behind each broken relationship that I dealt with. Buckle your seatbelts, everyone, we are going back in time to meet my first-ever boyfriend back in elementary school.
