“It's hard to accept less love than what you think you deserve, and it's also hard to love more than is deserved.”

Receiving less love than expected hurts because something inside us knows we should be treated with care. The pain says that a part of us has been neglected. In that way, hurt can show not only what was lost, but also the value we place on ourselves.

Giving more love than someone seems to deserve can also be difficult. Care becomes tied to memory, judgment, and the wish for fairness. Love then sits beside a private count of what has been given and what has come back.

These feelings are close to the ways people hurt themselves and others. Pain does not always make a person kind, and giving does not always make a person right. Both can show what we believe we are worth, what we think others owe us, and how easily one wound can become another.