Love Is Not What I Was Taught

It’s Valentine's Day!

The red and pink displays. Heart-shaped everything. The pressure to perform romance in some perfectly curated way.

And I find myself thinking not about flowers or chocolate or dinner reservations. But about what love actually means. What it cost me to learn. And how long it took to unlearn what I was taught.

I was taught that love was self sacrifice.

That it meant giving until you were empty. That it meant shrinking yourself small enough to fit inside someone else's expectations. That it meant silence when you wanted to scream and stillness when everything inside you wanted to run.

I was taught, not with words but by expectations, that love was earned. That it came with conditions and requirements and an invisible scorecard that someone else was always keeping. That if I was good enough, quiet enough, obedient enough, I would be worthy of it.

I was taught that love was surrender. Not the beautiful kind. The kind that asks you to disappear. The kind that mistakes control for care and calls it holy.

For a long time, I believed all of it.

I loved the way I was taught to love. I gave and gave and gave. I bent myself into shapes that were never meant to hold me. I silenced my own voice because I thought that was what love required.

And I wondered why I always felt so hollow.

It took years to unlearn what I had been taught. To understand that what I called love was something else entirely. Something dressed up in the right words but missing the heartbeat.

Real love, I have learned, does not ask you to disappear.

Real love does not keep score. It does not hold your mistakes over your head or remind you of all the ways you have fallen short. It does not punish you with silence or make you earn your place at the table.

Real love sees you. All of you. The messy parts. The healing parts. The parts still under construction. And it stays.

The only thing it asks of you is to stay too. And continue becoming the most true and full version of who you are.

I’ve found that kind of love with Jed. Not because we got it right from the beginning. We didn’t. We’ve stumbled. We’ve hurt each other in ways we wish we hadn’t. We’ve had to learn how to forgive, how to repair, and how to allow healing.

We’ve both had to unlearn what we thought love was supposed to be. We’ve had to relearn what it actually asks of us. We’ve had to choose growth over ego, honesty over comfort, and healing over being right.

And maybe you know what that’s like.

Maybe you’ve had to unlearn something, too. Maybe you’re in the middle of rebuilding. Or maybe you’re simply realizing that love, the real kind, requires more awareness and intention than anyone ever taught us.

We didn’t arrive here by accident. We arrived here by commitment. By staying in the conversation. By being willing to grow.

In it all, we kept choosing each other. And somewhere in that choosing, I started to understand what love actually was.

It was not perfection. It was presence.

It was not performance. It was patience.

It was not losing myself. It was finding myself reflected in someone who loved me enough to let me grow. And to grow alongside me.

I am still learning. I think we always are.

I am learning to love without gripping so tightly. To give without emptying myself completely. To receive without feeling like I’m taking on debt.

I am learning that love is not a transaction. It is a gift. One you give freely and one you allow yourself to receive.

And I am learning, slowly, to love myself the way I wish I had been loved all along.

With kindness. With grace. With the belief that I am worthy of it. Not because of what I do or how well I perform. But simply because I exist.

So this Valentine's Day, I am not thinking about the grand gestures. I am thinking about the small ones. The way Jed still chooses me after all these years. The way I am finally learning to choose myself.

If you are unlearning old definitions of love, I want you to know you are not alone.

It is hard work. It is sacred work. And it is worth every ounce of effort.

Because on the other side of the unlearning is something true.

Something that does not ask you to shrink.

Something that finally feels like home. LOVE. The real kind.

And you deserve every bit of it.

Whether or not anyone gives you flowers this week.