Fake it to make it

My relationship ended because of lockdown, but really it was just a catalyst - we were never right for each other but I’ve never loved anyone so much. Paired with being locked away, it felt like I was losing the best part of my 20s being alone in every sense. But I decided that I was going to live at double speed when we got out, and that meant finally starting to love myself at double speed too. After 8 or 9 years of truly hating myself and never feeling like I was good enough, pretty enough, smart enough, too sensitive and too intense, I decided I didn’t want to be like that any more. I thought I’d never find love again - I couldn’t imagine another person even wanting to kiss me - but I built myself up and just pretended I thought I was fine. And as it turns out, if you pretend enough it starts to become real anyway and other people believe it. I also realised that there’s a lot to be said for the space in between - love isn’t a relationship or waiting for a proposal or moving in together, there’s significant love and life that exists completely independently of all that and just because it’s not “official” doesn’t mean that it isn’t significant. After feeling like I was never going to be in love again or be loved again, I started to see a steep change as lockdown ended and realised I could see love all around me in completely different forms to how I’d ever thought about it before. Because I saw this in other people, I started to see it in myself too. Lockdown meant that I knew how full life is once we were out of it and how important those connections are, even if they are tenuous, and that I wanted to live my life fully loving other people in any form they came in and loving myself too.