The Question of Love

Love feels like a paradox to me. On one hand, I crave it—its warmth, its validation, its promise of connection. On the other, I fear it. Love requires vulnerability, a lowering of defenses that I’ve spent a lifetime constructing. To love someone else is to risk losing the control I hold so tightly, to risk being seen in all my flawed, messy humanity.

But is it love if it comes with conditions? If I need to feel admired, validated, or needed to sustain the connection? Is it love if my first instinct, when hurt, is to withdraw, to rage, or to devalue? These are the questions that haunt me, the questions that make me wonder whether my version of love is real or just another way to feed my sense of self.

I experience love through the lens of my own needs and desires. I love deeply when someone makes me feel whole, when they reflect back the image of myself that I want to see. But the moment that reflection falters—when they fail to meet my expectations, or worse, when they expose my flaws—I struggle to hold on to that love. My instinct is to protect myself, even if it means hurting them.

This doesn’t mean I don’t care. I do. But my caring is often filtered through the lens of my own fears, insecurities, and needs.

At times, I’ve wondered if my love is selfish, if it’s more about what I receive than what I give. But there are moments—small, fleeting moments—when I feel a spark of something deeper. Moments when I see the other person not as an extension of myself, but as their own, complete being. Moments when I want to protect them, not because of what they can do for me, but simply because I care.

These moments give me hope. They remind me that love isn’t a binary—something you either have or don’t have. It’s a spectrum, and for someone like me, it’s a journey. Love may not come naturally, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. It means I have to work harder for it, to push past my instincts, to learn to trust, to give without expecting in return.

Am I really able to love? The answer is both yes and no. I can love, but my love is shaped by who I am. It’s a love that struggles against the tide of my own defenses, a love that isn’t always pure or selfless, but a love that is real in its own way.

To truly love someone else, I know I must learn to love myself—not the image I project, not the version of me that seeks constant validation, but the flawed, vulnerable person beneath it all. It’s a daunting task, but if love is what I seek, then it’s a task worth undertaking.