Love and Acceptance

When I was little, no one exactly told me that love was conditional, but I got the message all the same. My mother and grandmother, the primaries in my life, always placed conditions on it. Always. Having said that, I think that my grandmother did love me no matter what. I'm not sure what made her believe it was needed to make me think she didn't. I guess maybe she thought it would improve me. That really didn't work.

For most of my life, I think this has been the fundamental mistake in how I approached the idea of love and myself. I always felt like there had to be conditions. I had to live up to standards, standards I could never meet. I think it has shut me off from a lot and kept me blind to other things.

This week on RuPaul's Drag Race, they were discussing how one of the contestants hasn't told his mother that he's a drag queen. One of the others said that while he knows it's hard to come out to your parents, you always should. No one should miss the opportunity to know you and love you for who you really are.

This statement misses a lot of the potential problems some people can face when they speak their truths to others, but I think he has a point. If you never show who you truly are to someone else, you never can truly be loved. They may love a version of you. They may love something you crafted or created, but never the actual person. Pretending to be someone else, trying to meet someone else's standards or expectations can be exhausting. It isn't fair to you.

Is there risk in not doing that? Of course. It means that you may never find romantic love. It means you may be rejected by your family. It means you may never have friends. I think, perhaps, that is better than being loved for things you're not.

Mind you, I'm not saying don't bathe and be horrible to everyone. I kind of doubt that is most people's true self. This is more about the people who spend years pretending to be straight or pretending to be religious or pretending to follow a cause just to please someone else. Don't do that. You deserve better than to be loved for what you can fake.