✨✨ Love Spec ✨✨
Very retrograde of me but I have been reflecting on previous romantic relationships in the middle of my grief.
Why the fuck would I do that?
I don't know. Maybe I'm an over achiever.
But honestly, I'm just tired of burying my feelings like a cat kicks litter over shit. Every time I pay the trauma tax later and this time I refuse to pay the interest rates.
So instead I paid / am paying up front and I'm acting on my retraining.
✨ Initial assessment: Where am I? ✨
I am confident that I love my partners very well, physically and emotionally.
Where I lack confidence is knowing what I want and need. And believing good things about love in general. These things have always felt taboo.
Oh no! Mustn't be too optimistic! Mustn't be too needy! Mustn't be too fat! Mustn't be going through bad shit at all!
So finally I'm at: fuck that.
✨ What do I believe? What do I want? ✨
I believe that a lifelong love is out there for me. I want to be ready for it and able to recognize it when it comes along.
🩶 I want:
- A love that's compatible, and stays compatible and steady as we both grow.
- Someone who reaches for me as much as I reach for them.
- To feel secure, adored, and desired.
🩶 How they show up / what this looks like:
- Steady and present.
- Keeps their word. Their actions match what they say, especially when it counts and especially when it's hardest.
- Shows up when I'm struggling, the way you sit with someone for six hours in urgent care, or feed a sick friend dinner.
- Stays present in my emotional / hard moments, not just my physical ones.
- Doesn't disappear, punish, or "give me space" when what I need is them. (Not to be confused with "room to breathe" below)
- Reaches toward me when it's hardest.
- Lets me be held and cared for, with no debt attached.
🩶 How we communicate:
- Tells me the truth before I have to ascertain from silence or absence
- Communicates with care, in particular checks that we understand each other instead of assuming, especially the more it matters.
- Patient across the gaps (bonus: reaches across gaps because I have short arms sometimes)
- Honors a "no" with grace.
- Includes me in decisions or changes if they arise.
- Repairs alongside me when we get it wrong.
🩶 Body and intimacy stuff:
- Wants to make love to me because they're in love with me, not just because they want sex.
- Loves me in my body, with care and intention.
- Would rather I ruin their shirt crying than hold it in.
🩶 Room to breathe:
- Fine with us each having our own life, friends, hobbies, and shows.
🩶 Some rules
- Healthy love isn't never getting hurt. It requires vulnerable inclusion, ownership, and honest repair.
- Truth isn't a connection bid and it doesn't have to win to be worth saying.
- Proactive consideration in tender matters best comes from love and compassion, not guilt or a sense of owing.
🩶 For myself to remember:
I'm allowed to be loved and cared for, without owing a debt.
I'm allowed to enjoy when things are good. Especially very good.
I am lovable as I am, and as I become.
I am allowed to feel things.
My emotions can be profound or intense but I handle them well and when it's hard I deserve the same presence and love that I give others when it's hard for them. Not as payback, just reciprocal out of my loving them, and vice versa.