When I first read Victor Hugo’s words about being loved “in spite of ourselves,” I actually teared up a little. Not the pretty, single-tear kind you see in movies, but the messy kind that happens when something hits you right where you’ve been hiding your deepest fears.
At 69, sitting in my therapist’s office for only the third time in my life, I’d just admitted that I couldn’t name what I was feeling. She’d asked me a simple question about my emotions, and I’d frozen like a student who hadn’t done the reading.
You’d think after teaching high school English for thirty years, after raising two sons, after becoming a grandmother three times over, I’d have this whole “understanding myself” thing figured out.
But there I was, realizing I’d spent so long being needed, being useful, being productive, that I’d never really considered whether I was loved just for being me. Not for what I did or what I provided, but for the flawed, sometimes difficult person I actually am.
The weight of earning love through doing
Growing up, I absorbed a simple equation: worthy people worked hard constantly, and rest meant laziness. This wasn’t explicitly taught, but it was in the air I breathed, the water I swam in. Love felt like something you earned through report cards, through helping with dishes, through never being too much trouble.
I carried this into adulthood like a heavy backpack I forgot I was wearing. As a teacher, I stayed late grading papers, volunteered for every committee, never said no to covering someone else’s class. At home, I was the mom who baked for every school event, who never missed a game, who had dinner on the table even after the longest days.
The thing is, it worked. Or at least it seemed to. People appreciated me, thanked me, told me I was wonderful. But Hugo’s quote made me wonder: were they loving me, or were they loving what I did for them? And more unsettling, did I even know the difference?
When my sons call now, I catch myself listing all the things I’ve done that week, as if I need to justify the space I take up in their lives. My volunteer work at the literacy center, the new recipe I tried, the book club discussion I led. It’s like I’m still trying to earn my keep, even in retirement.
Learning to sit with imperfection
My therapist asked me to try something that felt almost radical: spend one day without doing anything productive. No organizing closets, no meal prep for the week, no catching up on emails. Just existing.
I lasted about two hours before I found myself alphabetizing my bookshelf.
But that failure taught me something. The discomfort I felt in those two hours of “nothing” was the same feeling I’d been running from my whole life. The fear that if I stopped moving, stopped contributing, stopped being useful, I’d discover that underneath it all, there wasn’t much worth loving.
Victor Hugo understood something I’m only now beginning to grasp. The greatest happiness isn’t in being loved for our achievements or our usefulness. It’s in knowing we’re loved even when we’re difficult, when we’re tired, when we snap at our grandchildren because we haven’t had our coffee yet. It’s being loved when we’re not our best selves.
Last week, I was babysitting my youngest grandchild, and I completely lost my patience over spilled juice. Nothing dramatic, just that sharp tone that makes little faces crumble.
Later, as I was apologizing, this four-year-old patted my hand and said, “It’s okay, Grandma. I love you even when you’re grumpy.”
From the mouths of babes, right?
The courage it takes to be truly seen
There’s a book I’ve taught dozens of times, though I’m embarrassed to say I’m blanking on the author right now. In it, a character says something about how we all wear masks, and the real tragedy is when we forget we’re wearing them. I used to think I understood that line.
Now I realize I was only understanding it intellectually, not feeling it in my bones.
Being loved “in spite of ourselves” requires something terrifying: letting people see the “ourselves” part. The messy, contradictory, imperfect truth of who we are when we’re not performing, not achieving, not earning our place at the table.
I’m learning this with my sons now. Instead of calling them with updates on all my activities, I’m trying to share how I actually feel.
That retirement is sometimes lonely. That I miss having a classroom full of students who needed me. That some days I don’t change out of my pajamas until noon, and not because I’m sick, but because I just don’t feel like it.
The first time I admitted to feeling purposeless in retirement, I immediately followed it with, “But don’t worry, I’m keeping busy!” My son stopped me. “Mom,” he said, “you don’t have to be busy for me to love you.”
Finding new ways to understand love
At my book club last month, we discussed how different cultures have different words for love. The Greeks had several: eros, philia, storge, agape. Each one describing a different shade of this thing we try to capture with one insufficient word.
But Hugo’s quote suggests something even more nuanced. It’s not just about different types of love, but about the direction it flows. Are we loved for what flows out of us, or are we loved for simply being the vessel, cracks and all?
I think about this when I’m walking around my neighborhood now. I used to power walk, checking my step count, focused on the exercise benefit. These days, I meander. I stop to chat with neighbors, not because I’m being useful or productive, but because connection doesn’t always need a purpose.
Wrapping up
Victor Hugo gave us a gift with these words, though it’s taken me nearly seven decades to unwrap it properly. The greatest happiness isn’t just being loved. It’s knowing, really knowing, that the love isn’t conditional on our performance.
At 69, I’m finally learning to receive love without immediately trying to earn it. To sit with my imperfections without rushing to fix them. To believe my grandchild when he says he loves me even when I’m grumpy.
Some days I still catch myself listing my accomplishments like a resume. Old habits die hard. But more and more, I’m practicing just being. Being loved not for what I do, but for the complicated, sometimes difficult, always learning person I am.
What about you? Can you think of a moment when you felt loved not for what you brought to the table, but simply for showing up as yourself? Those moments are worth collecting, worth remembering, worth believing in.
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