It's Important to Practice Self-Love. Here's Why.

This post contains lethal doses of sarcasm if read irresponsibly.

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I sulk at the corner of the bed, hunched over and glaring downward at my bare thighs. At the opposite end, she rustles around in the bedsheets, the sound of crunching leaves. The space between us is roughly two feet, but it is an invisible partition separating expectations and reality.

“It’ll be ok, babe,” she reassures me as she extends her arm to rub my shoulder, as if her obligatory optimism can massage the bleak truth driving a wedge between our relationship and her fleeting happiness.

Her happiness is something a bit obtuse and abstracted, a tangential reality that floats just beyond her grasp. I’m her anchor, but only because I keep her grounded in a way that prevents her from ascending to new heights. I pivot my head around in a half-circle and her gentle sigh just barely creeps into my periphery. I see momentary bleakness waiting to unleash sweet bliss.

“I’ll never be good enough, I’ll never give you what you need,” I implore, my diction being the firmest thing in the room in the past 45 minutes. She pauses. Maybe this isn’t what she wants to hear, but deep down, she knows it’s essential, perhaps inevitable. She informs me she’s been sharing reaction GIFs with Chad, a buff 25-year-old she met at a cooking class. Although nothing physical has happened, she insists, maybe it’s time to “explore other options.”

Being absolutely toxic to someone you love is about the most painful emotion a human can feel. I understand the necessary course of action. All loves come to pass, one way or another. This is the end. I close my eyes and brace myself for a dreary finality.

As my eyelids peel open to reveal a fresh chapter to my stale existence, I realize my right hand is sticky and I forgot to bring a sock yet again.

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