Someone’s Going To Love You For All Your Imperfections

I’m so sick of the way we beat ourselves up for our failed relationships. For some reason, we carry the weight of our breakups on our shoulders and let the heaviness consume us, instead of using the pain to help us grow. We think we’re the problem. We rewind back through every moment and wonder what we did wrong, what we could have done better. We make ourselves sick with regret, and it’s just so painful, isn’t it?

We feel failure deep in our chests. We battle our inner demons. We play the blame-game within our own minds. We see ourselves as wrong and bad and terrible and imperfect. And we sit there and wonder how we’ll ever find the right person or the love we’ve been searching for.

But the truth is—we’re not perfect.
And love isn’t perfect.
And we’re not going to find this perfect person.

That sounds super harsh. But it’s the reality. We are flawed people looking for someone whose flaws match well with ours. We’re broken souls searching for wholeness and hoping to find someone along the same path whose wholeness can combine with ours and make something even more beautiful.

And in all this mess, we can’t expect ourselves to be perfect, or to find perfect. That just doesn’t exist.

But I hate the way we treat ourselves in love. We expect ourselves to be perfect. We hang the past over our heads, labeling our defeat and putting a name to our pain. We keep tabs on all the things we’ve done wrong and we tell the world how difficult we are, how hard it is to love us.

But maybe it’s not that we’re hard to love—maybe love is what’s hard.

Maybe instead of blaming and hating ourselves we need to recognize that two sinful people trying to love one another fully is difficult as hell. Maybe we need to stop expecting ourselves to do everything right, stop putting our significant others on pedestals, and start acknowledge that we’re all going to make mistakes as we navigate this whole thing. And that’s okay.

We’re not perfect. We have flaws. We make mistakes. We won’t do everything right in our relationships. And hell, we won’t be good at loving. But that doesn’t make us any less worthy of love.

It doesn’t matter what happened in our last relationship. It doesn’t matter when, or why, or how it ended. Sure, we always need to pay attention and learn from this pain, but we don’t have to chalk ourselves up to lost causes just because we haven’t found the person we’re meant to be with.

It’s time to stop hating ourselves when we fall out of love. And it’s time to stop expecting perfection—from ourselves and our partners.

Here’s the beautiful truth about love between two humans: it’s messy, it’s complicated, it’s flawed, it’s broken, it’s crazy, it’s wonderful, and it’s imperfect.

And even though it seems outlandish and maybe even a little cliché, the truth is, one day you’ll find someone who will love you through all your imperfections. One day you’ll meet someone and when you look back at all your other failed relationships, you’ll understand why. No, this person won’t be the ‘dream,’ or the ‘fantasy.’ He or she won’t be everything you’ve wished for, or shine with perfection. In fact, this person will still suck.

But he/she’ll be yours.

Your sinful, sucky, wonderful, messy, beautiful, imperfect person that you love—despite every part of him/her that doesn’t measure up, despite every sin, despite all the things that he/she has done, and will continue to do, to disappoint you.

You’ll love this person, even in his/her imperfections. And this person will do the same for you. Because that’s love. It’s not keeping wagers of all the ways you don’t measure up. It’s not expecting people to never make mistakes. It’s loving someone for who they are, including, and in spite of, their every blemish.

So please stop hanging your head. Stop wishing you were someone else, or looking back on past love with regret. Stop thinking you are so damn hard to be with, because in all reality you’re not. You just haven’t found the person you’re meant to be with yet.

Stop thinking you’re the problem. Sure, fix and strengthen and better yourself, but quit blaming. Hold your head up high, because your imperfection is what makes you human. And someday, you’ll find another human who will love you for all the things you despise in yourself.