"We accept the love we think we deserve."

Frm. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky





I've never read the book, but I'm really planning to now. I first saw this quote on PostSecret and thought Well doesn't that sound just beautiful... I wonder what it means... . After subconsciously processing it in my mind for a while I think I finally get it now.

Some people don't know what love is supposed to be like. Some people can't even tell if someone cares about them or not. I remember in Health class we watched a video about a girl whose boyfriend became very abusive towards her, yet would always turn around and say he loves her after each time he harmed her. She would always come back to him. I remember that some of my classmates and I were shouting at the TV screen, telling her to just get away from him (or was it just me who was shouting? ...). The poor girl's friend was of no help; she told her that the boyfriend only hurt her because he loves her so much, and that she wished that her boyfriend would have that same kind of love for her (WTF??). We accept the love that we think we deserve.

We look at these people and call them idiots for not seeing the signs that they were in danger, but the quote explains it a little. In these people's minds, they don't see an abusive person; they see an abusive person who loves them very much. And until they get beat to a pulp, their view may or may not change.

Here's another way to look at the quote. A kid gets accepted into a group of people who are supposedly "cool". The kid thinks that these people really care about him, but in reality they couldn't give a sh*t about him even if they tried. They take advantage of his smarts and his parents' overwhelming hospitality, using him to get answers for the homework and going to his house just to escape theirs. In the kid's point of view, they do these things because they like to hang out with him, never realizing that these people are just using him.

If they did anything wrong to him, would the kid stop hanging out with them? No, because these people are his "friends" and you don't abandon friends like that. We accept the love we think we deserve.

But how can we tell what love we deserve when we're too blind to see that there's something better?

A Drawing of a Princess

I love drawing. This is something I drew during Spanish class. Even though she ended up on lined paper, isn't she pretty? Anyway, I'm not so sure if you can see it well, but her name is Alice. The reason for that is that while I was drawing her, she looked like she could be a variation of Alice in Wonderland. The stuff to her right are her expressing two different emotions and Alexia, who I drew by accident XD. While I was coloring her, I thought up a whole story for her.

Basically her parents are a king and queen who were very harsh to their people, especially the peasants. One day, one of the peasants, who just happened to be a sorcerer, stumbled across some interesting information: one of the ancestors of the king and queen, Alexia, was a peasant herself. So the sorcerer somehow managed to cast a spell on the king and queen's newborn daughter, Alice, that makes her take on the appearance of her peasant ancestor every four days. At first the king and queen didn't really take notice; babies kind of look alike anyway XD. As Alice grew older, the spell became more and more difficult to ignore, especially when it was about time to marry her off; somehow all of her blind dates end up on her Alexia days (Alice is fifteen, but she lives in a medieval-like world, so yeah...).

Alice doesn't really mind the curse; she doesn't want to get married and her parents only let her venture out into the villages when she's Alexia. It drives her insane, though, because when Alice turns into Alexia, she's inclined to act like Alexia. While Alice is an angry girl, Alexia is calm and overly forgiving of every single thing. So even when Alice feels like shouting her lungs out at a villager, Alexia's personality makes her bottle it all up... which just contributes more to Alice's anger-management issues. Another thing that bothers Alice about being Alexia is that Alexia was unable to read. For some reason, this makes Alice unable to read when she turns into her ancestor (OMG just now I looked up "Alexia" to see if it meant anything- turns out that in addition to being a name, it's the name of a brain disorder that involves the loss of the ability to read 0_o... I swear this was unintended...).

The only person besides the king and queen who knows about the curse is Alice's best friend and bodyguard, Jeb. Even though people are less likely to kidnap Alice when she's Alexia, Jeb still accompanies her when she goes out to the village. Jeb used to be this orphan kid that wandered the streets and stole food. When Jeb was five years old, he saved the four-year-old Alice from an out-of-control carriage. The king made his knights adopt Jeb and teach him chivalry. He's an amazing archer and swordsman.

Other things about Alice: Her parents don't let her get show her anger at all in front of nobles and other royalty, and tell her to keep her anger below the "I'm gonna kill you" range when in front of the common people. So when she's getting angry or annoyed in front of one of her parents' guests, she winces (as shown in the top right of the picture). She's rarely truly happy; the bottom right picture shows when she is happy.

Yeah, I can come up with stories from the top of my head while doing random things. It's weird, I know. Usually when I think up a story, another one eventually takes its place.... so whether or not I end up writing Princess Alice's story is totally up to what I random thought I end up having in the future XD.