You’ve all heard this quote. At one point it was said just as much as “All men are dogs”. At one point and time everyone was getting this quote as tattoos, including myself. I truly felt that this two-word quote was so significant in my life. For me love did hurt, and that it would never be for me.
When I was a teenager, I had asked my mom for a tattoo, and she said that I could get one when I graduated from high school. So, my entire senior year, I stayed out of trouble, I got nothing less than a 3.0, and I did everything that I was supposed to do. Nothing was going to stand in my way of getting my first tattoo!!! Touch your neighbor and say sis was determined & dedicated! Lol!!
My cousin Jasmine was graduating the same year as me, and my aunt said that she would give her a graduation tattoo party. It was like everything was falling perfectly into place. I didn’t have to go into an actual tattoo shop, pay a seating fee, or get charged for shop prices. I would be in a familiar environment, get great food, and have my mom there with me. I even knew exactly what I wanted! I was getting “Love Hurts”. I knew how I wanted the design to be and I knew exactly where I wanted to get it. My plan was set!
Of course, I graduated. Not only did I graduate, but I had the opportunity to sing at my graduation. My mom was overwhelmed with love, emotion, and pure joy and happiness. I had good grades, I was accepted into the 10 college and universities that I applied to, so I just knew that I was getting that tattoo!!! I was ready. At the time I didn’t think about why I wanted this tattoo; I just knew I had to have it.
At the time I thought that it did in fact hurt. I had been in a few relationships where I felt hurt, lost, left in the cold, and in the end by myself. The older I got the more I recognized that it wasn’t love that hurt, it was the people. Love was in fact only a word. In the dictionary Love is a noun and defined as: An intense feeling of deep affection”. Now what in the world did I know about intense feelings or a deep connection as a teenager? In the bible 310 times. Love is found in 280 versus in the King James Version. At 18 I only knew about love being patient, and kind. Lol I honestly hadn’t put that much thought into how deep love could be and how significant it was. My favorite scripture of love is I John 4:8 says that “He who does not love does not know God, for God is love”. The Guy I was talking to would drive me to church and pull off. He never stepped foot in church with me, but he always knew where to find me, but never found a way to love me. The many years of hurt I experienced from that relationship motivated me to get “Love Hurts” at 18 years old. I wanted the world to know what I had thought of love.
Now at 33, after being in a few relationships and knowing that love was never about hoping someone had it inside of them, but more so finding it for myself. I had to find love for inside of me. So many times, we look for things in the world and end up going off course sometimes all to find that what we were searching for was already instilled inside of us by God. It took a few hard lessons for me to understand that love doesn’t hurt. It never did. The person never understood love and there we were, two lost souls going through the motions of what we assumed love was all along. Some things I thought love was selfish, impatient, hurtful, and honestly the things that I thought I was supposed to go through in order to get to the true meaning of it. Thank God for healing, time and growth. God is so patient with us. We can go years without understanding things, and he’ll be right there to guide us back home. Love is Love. It is no longer defined as hurtful to me. I know love. I understand love. Love is all around me. I am Love.
Tiara???
