Wear your heart on your sleeve. Be vulnerable. If someone hurts you, then they never deserved you in the first place.

I’m going to preface this by saying that my views here may be unpopular. So take everything I say with a grain of salt. I recently read a book that debunked a myth that you cannot love someone else until you love yourself. It was so eye opening to see a different perspective instead of blindly listening to what others have said for years.

Golden Time is probably my FAVORITE romance anime of all time. What I like most about it is that unlike many other romance animes, the main characters’ relationship starts early on and most of the series is actually about them working through their issues. Plus, they’re in college so most of us can actually relate. Sometimes it’s just frustrating as hell going through misunderstanding after misunderstanding just to get to the end of the third season to finally have them say “I like you”.

Personally, another reason I like Golden Time a lot is because I see a lot of parallels in myself with the MC, Kaga Kouko:

• Falling hard for someone
• Jealousy
• Likes spending a lot of time with an SO
• Happy on the outside, lonely on the inside
• Blaming yourself because of insecurities
• Feeling unworthy
• Relationship anxiety

Keep in mind, I’m not saying these things are necessarily bad traits—a lot of them are culminations of our experiences and how we grew up (look up attachment styles if you’re interested). Also, the healthy part comes from how you act on emotions, not the emotion itself. That’ll come in another post probably.

I’ll admit Kouko was a bit toxic in certain parts, but I believe there’s a difference between being maliciously intentful vs. toxic due to insecurities, not that there’s ever an excuse to be toxic. However, in the end, I personally think Kouko is at her core a great person and deserves to be happy because she just has so much love to give and truly cares about her.

The Life Lesson

“You can never have too much love for 1 person.” This sentiment is something my therapist told me the other day.

There are these negative notions to having feelings, being vulnerable, crying, and wearing your heart on your sleeve. Yeah it’s true some people may be more likely to walk all over you if you’re like this, but that’s not okay for them to do so. There is nothing wrong with being any of these things. These negative notions are just shitty social constructs.

Relationship anxiety is so normal. It’s normal to protect yourself and distance yourself so you don’t get hurt. I used to do this when I felt like there was an imbalance of feelings and would try to distance myself to protect myself from being utterly heartbroken.

But now, I say otherwise. Let your feelings flow through. If someone starts to treat you badly and take advantage of you, cut them out of your life. Love someone with all your heart, not just a piece of it. Don’t unhealthily smother them and lose yourself in the process though. Imagine that with every person that romantically enters your life you always give your all and love them wholeheartedly. And each one ends and hurts you and so you wrap yourself in a shell to protect yourself. What happens if the right person then comes along but you were too afraid to give them all of you and so it doesn’t work out?

I’ve always said, always give it your all. Get hurt, pick yourself up, and try again. Because one day, the Kouko inside your heart will find it’s match because you DO deserve someone amazing.