#profoundlyloved

15 February 2015

There are two different types of people on Valentine's Day. The first type are the cute, happy couples you see strolling down the street, holding hands, gazing into each other's eyes, and totally oblivious to everyone and everything around them. The later variety are the polar opposites (but no less annoying), the poor, sad single people who "don't need a significant other to feel whole", but yet still feel the need to announce their miserable, single existence whenever the day of love and chocolate comes around.
I've always thought that you had to fit into one of these two categories on Valentine's Day. There was no medium, only the couples who love the holiday, or the singles that loathe it. And, since I have been forever single, I was automatically placed in the group that hates it (Feel free to read my post from last Valentine's Day to hear all about my single woes). Which really was a shame, because Valentine's Day always seemed like a holiday I would love. Pink, candy, pink, happiness, pink, love, and pink! What wasn't there to enjoy?

But I had a realization this year. It hit me like lightning hits the Empire State Building. I think it was when I read Kate's tag at The Goodness Revolt the other day on self love. Valentine's Day is not just a day to celebrate romantical love, it's a day to celebrate love. I know, profound right? But really, I had never thought of it before. Our culture feeds us with the idea that the only type of love is the love you receive from a significant other, so that's the type of love we crave for, but we forget about the other types of love. The love of your parents, the love of your friends, the love for yourself (something I am still working on), and, most importantly, the love of God. 
Don't you just love love? It's everywhere! We are deeply, profoundly loved, we just don't realize it because we don't have a boyfriend/girlfriend to give us that love we are so focused on having.

This Valentine's Day has been a different one for me, but one I have honest and truly enjoyed. 
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Thank you so much, Kate, for tagging me for your super sweet, genius tag. :)

1. tell me about someone you love, and why
This is hard. I love too many people to narrow it down to just one. I could talk about my parents, or my dear, dear friends, or many, many other people. My love language is quality time, and these people can almost always listen to me, and comfort me, and laugh with me. Even at my worst, most annoying times. The people who will forever and always love me, no matter what I do.
That's a pretty broad answer, but really, there is no one person I can highlight.

2. what is one thing you do that makes you feel all like "man, I could do this forever" when you do it?
Every day when I go down to our cold, scary, depressing basement to do my French, I just can't help but feel an overwhelming sense of passion flooding my heart, and I can't help but think "Man, I could do this forever!" 
I plan to go more into detail on this in a later post because there is no way I can explain it properly in a simple paragraph. 

3. what do you love about yourself?
There is not much I love about myself. I am a people pleaser, so, often if someone doesn't like a certain trait of mine, I also, must find fault in it. I'm getting better, but it's hard to really see what God sees in yourself and learn to love it. Especially when you don't want to sound prideful. I am, however, extremely compassionate and loyal, which, I guess are traits I can admire in myself. I do think of them as a curse, though. I always feel as if my heart breaks far too easily.

4. what advice would you give to someone who doesn't believe she/he is beautiful?
Everyone is beautiful, but not always in appearance. It sounds cliche and annoying, but it is true. outside beauty is fleeting. Your earthly body is going to deteriorate to nothing one day. You should be more worried about your inner beauty and becoming what God made you to be, because if you don't have that, outside beauty means nothing.
Okay, that wasn't entirely encouraging... 

5. what is the best piece of advice you've ever gotten about confidence?
This is really terrible, but I honestly can't think of anything. I use confidence as a mask sometimes, to hide all my un-confidence, that most people probably think I am quite content and happy with how I am. I don't know...

6. If you were your own daughter, what advice would you give yourself? 
"Stop worrying about the opinion of others so much." I tell myself this everyday, but it still has yet to really get engraved into my mind. Again, I do struggle with people-pleasing and worrying about what the people around me think. It has put up barriers between myself and everyone else, and it's hard, it really, really is.  

7. a verse, poem, sonnet, ancient-old proverb that inspires you to love yourself and others?
"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment"- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Tagging:
Anyone and everyone! (seriously, everyone must do this) Tag, you're it ;)

Love you all to the moon and back! 

12 comments

  1. Ohohoh. My Valentine's Day was lovely, but very tiring and stressful for the second half... But I managed to get through it with love. I was excited about it for the whole week. <3

    AND I'D DO THE TAAGGGG, but I am lazy. Soooo. I guess I'm just a party pooper. ;-) Happy Valentine's Day, Hannah!

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    1. I'm glad to hear you ha a good Valentine's Day, Candence! :) And you should only do the tag if you really want to ;)

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  2. Valentine's Day was a really good day, even though I was single. I got to binge watch the Narnia movies, which is filled with sibling gushy love <3

    xoxo Morning

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    1. Wow, that's a great idea! I am totally having a Narnia marathon next year!

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  3. #6 is me, every day. It's funny, my mum literally says exactly that and I'm all like, "I knowwww" but then I don't listen. #lifestruggles :p

    I really like all your answers ~ and as someone who hasn't given V-Day a whole lot of thought, I never made the connection that it's about love in general, not just the romantic mushy kind. Thanks for connecting the dots for me!! haha.

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    1. The struggle is real!
      And thank you, Olivia! :)

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  4. I really, really like your answers to the tag, Hannah. Thanks for being so honest. I can relate to a lot of what you said.

    Oh, and I'm with you on the whole Valentine's Day thing - as a single person, I just like to try to enjoy it as a day celebrating love, and not think of it as something that I can't be a part of yet. That struck me this year, too. But I mean, any excuse to make heart-shaped cookies and to wear pink is okay with me!

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    1. Aww, thank you :)
      Cookies and pink are always awesome!

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  5. I loved what you wrote before you answered the questions. It is definitely easy to love other people, but when it comes to yourself, that's a completely different matter. I love Emerson's quote!

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    1. Thank you, Ekaterina! And, yes, Emerson is great :)

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  6. Hannah, I loved reading all of your answers so much, girl! The paragraphs you wrote at the top about love and celebrating how much God loves us and how much we can love each other, wow. That was just so well written and downright beautiful. Being compassionate and loyal, not only are those things you should love about yourself, but they prove something about you: you are also *brave*. Because to be loving and *loyal* especially, and to not be afraid of breaking your heart over someone in the process, that is truly amazing. You're awesome, girl.

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    1. Thank you so much, Katie. And thank you for making this tag and being awesome yourself! :)

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