Being loved doesn’t always mean being understood. Love shows up in many ways—through family, friends, partners, and even in how we love ourselves. But even when love is real, it doesn’t guarantee that someone sees the fullness of who you are.
Love and understanding overlap far more than people give credit for. To love—love to my standard, my definition of love—you must also understand.
But understanding does not mean correctness. I want to emphasize that. So often people mistake understanding for agreement, but that’s not what it is. Understanding isn’t about seeing everything the same way, knowing exactly what to do or say, or being able to read every mood. It’s not mind-reading.
To understand, to me, is to realize that nothing is bigger than you, bigger than me, larger than us, that we cannot handle. It’s to meet someone where they need to be met, even when you don’t agree. It’s to listen. To care. To recognize the soul in front of you and treat it as such.
I think being fully understood is a myth. A myth we created when we were lonely and longing, when we wanted to believe in the stories we grew up on, the Disney movies and sweet melodies that said, they get me, they really get me. But no one ever fully does. That is the gift of being human: the mystery, the unfolding, the never-ending discovery of one another and of ourselves.
Still, I believe in a person who will understand me in the way that matters—not fully, not in entirety, but deeply enough. Someone whose heart I will know and feel even if I can’t comprehend every piece of it, and who will try to understand mine in return. I believe in that.
Because right now? People don’t know how to love or understand me. They stitch me up into something even they can’t comprehend. I know I’m hard to read. That used to upset me. But I’ve stopped trying to correct the assumptions. To do so would cost me my sacredness. I used to try—shoving the truth of me down people’s throats—but in the process I began to lose my rarity.
Not everyone thought Van Gogh was brilliant. Not everyone can handle tequila when they ordered a Surfside. And that’s okay. Not everyone will understand me either.
I don’t feel the need to prove myself anymore. But I still long for that little cue—that glance, that pause—that tells me I am seen. There is a difference between proving yourself and wanting to be seen. One is survival. One is human.
And that’s how I know I’ve grown. I love me. I’ve stopped needing others to validate me. But I’m also a lover. And as much as I love myself, at the end of the day, someone wants to have somebody. That longing doesn’t mean I’m weak—it means I’m alive. It means I’m still willing.
And maybe that somebody isn’t even a person. Maybe it’s God. Maybe it’s Jesus. Maybe the truest form of being understood isn’t in another human at all, but in the One who already knows me fully. With God, there’s no misreading, no half-seeing, no projection. Just knowing. “Before a word is on my tongue, You know it completely.” That is understanding in its purest form.
And maybe the earthly someone, if or when they come, isn’t supposed to understand me perfectly. Maybe they’re just supposed to be safe enough to keep trying.
