Did I fall in Love too fast?

2 months ago, I saw this person on tinder. I was attracted to their smile, their sense of self, their energy. But love isn’t the same as this initial attraction, this impulse to say yes, this right swipe. Love came after.

Relationships are mirrors. We see parts of ourselves we couldn’t see by on our own. I saw parts of me that I didn’t like. I loved when I choose to lean into the discomfort  of this new knowledge.  I loved with I chose to be curious instead of judgmental. I loved when I choose to practice openness and vulnerability, with myself and with them.

If a mind is like a garden, full of all kinds of growing things. This relationship showed me some of the invasive plants  in my garden that were hiding behind my cultivated spaces. Choosing love meant choosing to go into this spaces and begin the task of identifying what was growing and carefully removing each plant, root and all. I was filled with shame over the things I found growing there. How could I  have let this happen? Did these parts say something about who I am.

I was overwhelmed by the amount of identifying and digging I needed to do. Could I really handle this? I wanted to back out, withdraw, pretend it wasn’t there.   Ease and rest are necessary for survival. I had been able to rest and grow and learn.  I was ready to know more of me. I didn’t want to ignore this place inside of me. I didn’t want to continue to keep these secrets from myself. I didn’t want to give them a chance to grow more. If I couldn’t love me, I couldn’t love someone else. I wanted to choose love.

Future me had/has the tools and skills to begin to make sense of it all and transform it into something beautiful some day. There is no shame in not being able to handle everything all at once. There is no shame is recognizing that sorting those all this stories given to me had been beyond my capacity to handle. It had been good for younger me to  put this away until now.

These stories I have had to unlearn, were like plants given to me. Some were planted for me before I was born or before I could tend my own garden.  Some were plants people gifted to me and I put in my garden, not  knowing they were going to hurt me later. Part of this process has been to realize all these plants, these stories, were given to me because someone had thought they were beautiful,  helpful. We did not know that in my garden these plants would spread, smothering till I could not longer be me.

Choosing love has been choosing to go into this secret garden, this hidden space, and begin to rediscover the remnants of me that was smothered underneath all this stories that aren’t me. To delicately remove each plant that didn’t belong. Taking care not to damage the tender plants that make up the real me.

Choosing love with someone else has to begin with choosing love with myself. I can’t love the humanity of someone else if I can’t love the humanity within me. I can’t be open and curious and tender with someone else if I can’t be open and curious and tender with me.

I did not fall in love too fast. I choose love from the beginning and I got to experience how beautiful that choice could be. I get to continue choose love with myself and with others. I get to continue to experience the beauty that comes with vulnerability and openness. I get to continue to be curious about what make me me. I get to tenderly care for the real and raw me while carefully removing the parts that aren’t actually me. I get to continue to live for me.