A couple of mornings ago, I was watching the Today Show, and they were doing a small tribute to Whitney Houston. Over the past week, I’ve had so many mixed emotions about her death. I couldn’t help but think, “What a damn waste.” She had such a beautiful voice, and at one time, had the world in the palm of her hand. Her death has spawned many conversations in my house this past week, even though my kids are too young to really know who she is and what a great talent she once was. Last Sunday night, I found a You Tube video of Whitney singing the national anthem at the Super Bowl in 1991. I wanted them to hear how talented she had once been, while then explaining to them all that she ended up losing because of being addicted to drugs. I don’t know if they got it or not, but like I said, we’ve had several conversations this week about drugs and what being addicted to them can do to you--and how they can ruin your life, and how Whitney Houston is a prime example of that—how not even being rich and famous and beautiful and so very talented makes you immune from the life-destroying effects of drugs.
Back to a few mornings ago when I was watching the tribute to her on the Today Show. They played a clip of her from many years ago, well before her drug addiction had a vice grip on her life. She looked so young, so beautiful, and that voice. Wow, that voice. The clip they showed was of her singing “The Greatest Love of All,” and this line from the song grabbed my attention: “Learning to love yourself…it is the greatest love of all.”
I had several thoughts in kind of an “ah ha!” moment as I sat on my couch early that morning. First of all, I wondered when Whitney stopped loving herself as she sang about so eloquently and beautifully. Because surely, if she loved herself, she would never have let her life become a downward spiral of drugs and beatings from an abusive husband. I wondered if she ever really loved herself, or if she just sang about it, hoping that belting out those famous words would convince her to love herself.
But more than thinking about Whitney Houston, I thought about myself, and that line from her song…”Learning to love yourself…it is the greatest love of all.”
Those words are so very true, and I have been thinking about them for days.
Loving yourself is not an easy thing to do. In fact, it is downright hard. At least for me it is and always has been. I have an inkling why, but that’s not what I am writing about right now.
It is kind of ironic that last Saturday, my sister and I had a conversation about unconditional love. More specifically, unconditional love as it relates to us as parents, and how we love our children unconditionally. We talked about our parents, and how they really don’t love anyone unconditionally, not even their children, and how very sad that is. We talked about how while we love our kids unconditionally, we, even as adults, have a hard time loving ourselves and believing with our whole hearts and souls that anyone will truly love us, faults and all, because our parents put so many conditions on their caring for us. We talked about how it is hard to really trust and KNOW that anyone will care about us unconditionally. It was quite a heartwarming conversation, even though it sounds rather depressing. It really wasn’t depressing at all.
There I go rambling again…
While Whitney Houston obviously isn’t the greatest “loving yourself” role model, I can’t help but be inspired by her words…learning to love yourself, it really is the greatest love of all.
Have I repeated that enough??
This is my point. (Yeah, I have one, shockingly!) I haven’t spent much of my life loving myself. Just the opposite, actually. I am very hard on myself and always have been. Many times over the years of my adult life, I’ve been told by friends, bosses, relatives and even mere acquaintances that I don’t need any enemies because I have the worst one of one of all…myself. I used to laugh it off when people said that, but now that I really think about it, I think how sad it is. Sad that I have spent a great deal of my life not liking myself very much. Oh, there have been many times for sure when I have felt good, no great, about my life and what I accomplished. Like when in I was in college and made straight A’s occasionally. Or when my kids were little and I enjoyed them so very much, and I really felt like I was a great mom (most of the time anyway!) Or when I started working at Share and I felt so good about what I was doing and thoroughly loved every minute of the job I had. I’m sure
there are more, but those are the situations that come to mind first.
I wonder though…does feeling good about what you do in life mean you love yourself? I’ve been thinking about this a lot the past couple of days, and I don’t think that it does. Loving yourself means really loving yourself…even when bad things happen, or when you do something stupid, or say something stupid, or get in a fight with your husband…in other words, when things aren’t “perfect” yet knowing deep in your soul and heart that you are an awesome person...loving yourself as you do your kids...loving the just for who they are in spite of the sometimes stupid things they do that you don't necessarily love.
My thoughts are all over the place right now, as it has been a few days of me not loving myself very much. I guess I am a hypocrite for everything I have written just now. I will continue this at some point with a post titled “The Greatest Love of All, Part 2.
I will not be a failure at one thing…posting my ‘Joyful Simplicities’ for the week.
I have no pictures to share this week. I took them, but Rachel took the camera to Chicago, and she deleted all of the pictures I took because the camera ran out of storage. But here is my list, boring without pictures to go along with it. And I am too tired to write in picture-vivid detail.
Valentine’s Day treats
~a heart shaped cherry cake with cherry cream cheese frosting ( I had such a lovely, drool-worthy picture of the cake!)
~pretzels with melted Hershey kisses smooshed with pink and red M & M’s (I had such a lovely, drool-worthy picture of a plate full of these treats!)
~a bowl full of cherry M & M’s. (Cherry M & M’s! Where have these been all my life?) (I had such a beautiful, drool-worthy picture of my pink heart shaped bowl full of cherry M & M’s!)
Lauren teases me all the time that I take pictures of crazy stuff. I tell her that some day, when I am either an old lady or dead, she will appreciate having my silly pictures. She laughs at me.
Weekend breakfast
Okay, so that shouldn’t be on this list. I have been sick all weekend, and I did not feel like cooking at all. What is joyful about that? That 2 of my 4 kids told me this morning that they missed having a big breakfast.
A lazy Saturday morning
On my couch, under my favorite quilt, my hands wrapped around a mug of hot tea.
A scrapbook
I wrote several weeks ago about a small scrapbook I started working on. Well, that ‘small’ scrapbook has become a true labor of love project that is far from small. It has snowballed into something much bigger than I imagined it to be when I began. But I am glad to have rediscovered and enjoyed something that I loved doing years ago.
That is all folks.
Stay tuned for Part 2 of "The Greatest Love of All/Learning to Love Yourself."
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