Thesis Writing 9

I wasn’t looking for anything more, least of all love.  I felt like I was figuring myself out for the first time and the one thing I knew for sure was that I was terrified of ever loving anyone again.  When you love someone, it hurts you when they’re hurt.  When you love someone, you hate yourself for not being able to be better for them. When you love someone, you owe it to them and to yourself to let them know you, but first you have to know yourself—and, more importantly, you need to have accepted yourself. 

As time went on, I grew more and more accustomed to being alone.  I spent a lot of time at the Chagall exhibit at the Jewish Museum across from Central Park.  Chagall had always been my favorite painter and I found it comforting to spend time around things I loved.  There was a particular painting of a vase of flowers his wife had arranged on a table in their home that almost made me cry whenever I saw it.  And somehow, in realizing that I had all the power necessary to make choices that would make me happy, I started to accept myself.