Usually I am one of those people who sort of skips blithely through life without incurring much damage. Oh, I’ve been on fire. I’ve been held up at gunpoint. I’ve had way more close calls with sexual assault than I care to think of. People have come in and out of my life without my taking much note of it.
I have lost people who I love in various ways. That’s not very clear, is it? It might mean that I loved the people in different ways or that I lost them in different ways. Both are true. There is really only one person whose loss really damaged me. The others dented me a little, but I moved on fairly easily. There are a few losses that make me wince a bit, but only one that can still make me cry all these years later. He’d love knowing that I suspect.
And so? Does that make me cold-hearted? Is it the opposite–I am so intense that a relationship burns itself out without leaving a mark? Am I holding something back because I am afraid of getting hurt again? Too scared to feel anything too strongly?
That is so uncomfortable that there much be a bit of truth to it. What? Oh, all of it, depending on the situation.
Most people I do not care about. I don’t dislike them, but I don’t like them either. Or even some people I like enough to spend time with socially. They’re fine, but it’s not like I think about them if they aren’t there. I think that is how most people feel about me as well. A lot of times I can meet the same person several times without them remembering ever having met me. I am sort of a leaves no trace person.
Except. Then there are the ones who I am so into that it’s almost obsessive. Not almost. Like the Kurdish guy who told me he was in love with me the first time I saw him. Lightening bolt. He wanted me to spend every second with him, which was fine with me. He didn’t want to meet my friends or for me to spend any time with them. Which was not fine with me. It lasted a few months. Reading French novels to me in bed. Drinking wine. Talking about philosophy and movies. Jules and Jim. That ended very badly after a Jules et Jim experiment gone horribly awry. Bad, bad judgment call on that.
Mostly, though, I hold back. Even with people I love. I don’t love them all the way because I assume they will leave. I might even push them in that direction. Which will be exactly why I need to sort of get myself together. Be more vulnerable. Be more open. Be less afraid of being hurt. There must be a reward for it in the end, right?
Maybe someday there will be. Not this week. This week, my enhanced openness and vulnerability mostly resulted in severe emotional contusions and maybe even some cardiac breakage. Nothing permanent, I don’t think, but it did remind me that it is not always without risk. Someday, maybe I will see the upside.
The good news is that in spite of how awful it was, I didn’t split apart or shut down. Small steps. I think I might have wounded someone’s, and they definitely hurt mine. I think we will get past it. We will see.
Feeling a little battered, but OK.
I am thankful for my valiant and lovely emotional attorney this week in particular. It has been a soul bruiser.
If I had a soul, which I don’t.
If I had a soul, it would not be at all used to having so many feelings. This is exactly why people repress them so often. Feelings are a real drag sometimes.
For a person who is used to moving through life without it hitting her very hard, this has been a test.
I’m not really sure I passed, but I got though it and maybe learned enough to do better next time.
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