Dear July,
There's a reason the Bible tells you to guard your heart.
Above all else, guard your heart,
for everything you do flows from it.~ Proverbs 4:23
For many years of my adolescence, loving without boundaries felt like a good thing. Some would even call it selfless.
But in reality, it was a lack of respect for myself.
It wasn't an act of love. It was an act of fear. I didn't want to be disliked or abandoned. I thought that if I loved people enough, gave enough, forgave enough, and asked for little enough in return, I could make sure they stayed.
But by doing that, I wasn't loving myself.
So I had to learn how to love as much as I do, with boundaries in place.
This lesson came unintentionally, but graciously, from my Abuela.
Let me paraphrase who my Abuela is really quickly.
My Abuela is one of my favorite people in the world. She is kind. She is so strong. She is selfless. She makes the best, most buttery pancakes and the best arroz con gandules you could dream of. She has always been a homemaker and loves banging on some pots and pans. But most of all, she loves her family so wholeheartedly.
My Abuela signs off every card with:
“I love you too much.”
This may be due to the fact that English is not her first language, but reading it over and over again for the past 29 years of my life has taught me something far beyond that.
So much so that I got that phrase tattooed on me too.
(Do you sense a theme with me and tattoos?)
When she writes, “I love you too much,” it isn't a negative.
It means:
I love you too much to hurt you.
I love you too much to watch you hurt yourself.
I love you too much to not show up for you.
I love you too much to let you treat me or yourself wrongly.
Cariño, “I love you too much” is a promise.
It's a promise to be honest, out of love.
To be genuine, out of love.
To correct and guide, out of love.
To have boundaries, out of love.
To love wholeheartedly without abandoning yourself in the process.
Because guarding your heart doesn't mean building walls around it.
It means learning who gets to hold it.
It means understanding that you can love someone deeply and still say no.
You can forgive someone and still keep your distance.
You can show up for someone and still ask them to show up for you.
You can love people with your whole heart without handing them every piece of it.
I spent a long time thinking that boundaries made love smaller.
Now I think they make love more honest.
And maybe that's what my Abuela has been teaching me all along.
To love you too much to lie to you.
To love you too much to let you hurt me.
To love you too much to stop loving myself.
To love you too much to ever love you halfway.
I hope you love yourself too much, and I hope you let others love you too much too.
con amor,
Chalise
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