When I was in first grade my class went on a field trip to a pumpkin patch. My Dad, as per usual, was chaperoning. It came time for lunch and I went to sit on a bale of hay next to my friend Isabella. I pulled my peanut butter and jelly that now had a dent in it after I accidentally sat on it on the bus out of my brown paper bag. I dug in. Nothing has ever stopped me nor will ever stop me, perhaps bar the apocalypse, from eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I started talking to my friend, Izzie. I don’t remember what we were talking about. We were best friends. We talked about everything. However, what I do remember is while I was mid-sentence, Izzie stood up and walked over to her mom, who was also a chaperone on the trip and said, “Mom, I just can’t stand her! She won’t leave me alone.”

I was still within earshot. Tears stung my eyes. I was now tasting peanut butter mixed with my own salty tears. I wiped my eyes and turned away. I didn’t want anyone to know I had heard. Somehow that felt like it would make it worse. My Dad came over and sat with me, as would become a pattern on field trips when I struggled with my friends and he rubbed my back. Neither of us talked.

That night when we got home from the field trip I asked my Dad, “Why doesn’t Izzie want to hang out with me?” I can remember the sadness and anger in my Dad’s eyes. I’m pretty sure as a parent all you want is for your kid to be treated well and be loved by their peers. I know that’s what my Dad wanted for me. My Dad took a deep breath and told me the truth, as he always does. “I don’t know, baby. I think sometimes you love people so much they don’t even know how to handle it. But that is not a bad thing. That is one of the best things about you. And you will find the perfect people that understand the way you love. I know it’s hard now, but please never stop loving the way you do. You will find the right people and until then you always have Daddy and me. And just know, when people don’t understand you send them love and white light. Sometimes they are going through something you know nothing about.”

As a six-year-old, I shrugged my shoulders and walked away with a somewhat heavy heart.

When my friend in middle school told me I was annoying because I texted too often and told her I loved her too much I again thought about trying to change myself and the way I love people. Maybe I really was, “too much.” But the more I tried to change myself and my brand of loving, the more I realized that my kind of love runs deep within my veins and my Dad was right. His voice would always echo in my mind, “That is one of the best things about you…and…when people don’t understand send them love and white light.”

So, I spent years sending love and white light. Instead of being mad about the way I love, I started to see it as a great thing. In turn, I also started breathing, and knowing the right people would come my way and as I relaxed and stopped holding on to my friends with a vice grip, I learned to love myself more. Eventually, my tribe did show up and boy howdy, was it worth the wait when I found the right people. I even had a friend that didn’t think it was weird that I would text her right after she left to tell her I love her one more time.

Maybe my brand of love would be overbearing and exhausting for you, too. That’s okay. I’m just here to say if your brand of love is one that other people don’t understand—don’t change yourself, just wait for the right people who understand you to come along because they will. And in the meantime send love and white light because people are on tough journeys and going through difficult seasons we know nothing about.

Priority one: learn to love yourself. Through positive self-talk. Through a new viewpoint. Through taking the time to actually get to know yourself.

Priority two: love the way that feels best for you and know the right people will be attracted to you. There is never love that is not worth giving. We all need it. We all crave it.

Priority three: remember everyone is going through something—most of the time it’s something we know nothing about so spread patience, light and love like warm butter.

Have a wonderful weekend, friends. I love you bunches. I mean like—A LOT. XOXO, CAMDW