Practice Makes Progress A Ode To Thine Love Of Self

While everyone galavants about your staring themselves in the mirror chanting affirmations of chocolate and rose pedals, you walk vigilantly through the fire of society with your crooked smile. Behind those eyes are the dangerous thoughts of personal sovereignty freeing you from the ideals of their isms. Stop. Wait. What’s that? The sound of your own voice from the distance! It’s calling you, “Hey bitch! I love you!”. Embrace. The angels blow their horns, cherubs uncinate in fountains, Cupid aims directly for someone’s cocoa flavoured arteries, a hurricane of teddy bears explode from the shelves into foolish arms. Birds chirp, Bees attempt to fornicate with them. Aaaaaaaaaaaaah love.

Sauntering from one co-worker to the next with their hopes of love and adoration you remind yourself whose love it is you desire the most. Whose respect it is you regard as highest. Whose words of adoration you are most desperate to have pour into you throbbing ear drum. Maybe some eager quivering like the teens from Twilight. Always with the lip biting and fucking quivering those, endearing hormones. You don't need to have some d-bag suck your blood—literally or figuratively—to experience eternal love. And believe me a hairy wild man fighting for your honour will get old quick when you stop making your own decision. Your life is already jam packed with the characters it needs to have enough excitement, most importantly, you. As quick glimpse into your own eye, twinkle and a wink. Its you, lady, its absolutely you.

You aren’t the shity older sister who keeps the younger one down, you aren’t the jealous aunt poising the hero with a magic apple, you can’t be anyone but the hero of this story. A professional you, smart and able to read this article of incorporation to your own love. Signed in your own love with your bleeding heart and scribbled in your best 9th grade cursive. You blast your name on the dotted line and file your ambitions for self love accordingly upon the agenda. Tuesday: Self love midnight to 11:59pm. Wednesday: Self love midnight to 7am, Yoga, listen to Karen talk about her stupid boyfriends flowers and chocolate, noon to 11:59pm ignore everyone and resume self love. Thursday: repeat at Infinitum.

The joke here, if you’re able to look past your desire for love in other places you’ll see everyone else is just trying to achieve a small piece of what you are already grasping in your slender but powerful hand. Self love is as simple as self loathing. It takes work to hate yourself and stay there. It takes more work to turn it around but even more work to love yourself. The feeling of love is simply more powerful and lasts you sooooo much longer. So flaunt your self love. Do it while you walk in your favourite shoes, favourite outfit, with all your favourite accessories, shake that hair out like your Cindy Crawford in a 90s Pepsi commercial, a smile from ear to ear like the Cheshire Cat, but not even. Make everyone see your self love and have envy over it, make them jealous, not maliciously of course, but do it, the envy is fine, its how we affirm our desires in life and make choices to keep ourselves alive. Make everyone else pine for your love you have so much. Other people should see how much you love yourself and want your attention like a little cat, so they too can feel a bit of what its like to love themselves. You could be The Pope of self love and imagine yourself kissing everyone on the forehead. “MMMMMMmmuaaaaaaha my babies, love yourself. In the name of me, this fur coat, and the holy hand bag. MMMMMMmmuaaaaaaha“

Self love can be cool. You can feel kind of love a villain too. Very Harley Quinn, very devil may care. Don’t go too far in the opposite direction though. Don’t do it for vanity, find the balance. Take one drag of a cigarette and cough for a minute then recompose yourself and put that shit out, respect yourself woman, for fucks sake, put that shit in the garbage. Don’t be danger be a self love bad ass. And if you’re going to be anything be fucking Mind-Full.