A few months ago there began this tickle, a formless thing, not quite an emotion or idea yet but an ebb from a dark corner of my soul. Something I had forgotten by the time I was five or thirteen perhaps that decided it was time for me to stop hiding. We all have had moments in our past that have formed a bell jar around us. People can see us, the version of ourselves we want them to see, but they can never really reach us. The wall we put up is a double edged sword though because we can never really touch anyone else either. I knew I lived in a state of distance from others. I learned over the years how to nurture and tend someone else and not get anything back. Part of that was knowing if I allowed someone in close enough to the core of who I am so I could get what I want it was never really worth the risk. I am not unusual, we all have experienced tragedy in one form or another but what I chose for myself, the state of being always an arm's length away from everyone, was a choice I made for survival.
The tickle that began a few months ago only grew over time. It crept up on me, this unwelcome understanding I have chosen always feeling a little alone even in a crowded room. I have been okay with that though for a really, really long time. And the choice I made out of survival so long ago was reinforced and the glass of my bell jar made a bit thicker with every betrayal after that. Here's the thing, until very recently I didn't see the way that choice was preventing the very things I have wanted most in my life. For me, money means only as much as it can do to serve me, its only value is what I can accomplish with it. In and of its self it is worthless paper. When we die it means nothing and if in life we choose it over love or passion or compassion we have wasted our lives. Fame is not something I am interested in, I can see in myself the capacity for my ego to over inflate given too many accolades and what could have started out as a lofty endeavor could be lost. Beauty is fleeting, time takes it away if not some twist of fate. But relationships, love, family, extending oneself for another... That has purpose, that serves something more essentially good, that has longevity and can feed the basic goodness in the world causing a domino effect.
Yet, here I am, me and my walls. I can't reconcile in my mind the dichotomy. I can never have the love affair I really want for example, if I can never allow myself to trust someone enough to let them show up in my life without having to prove themselves to me right out of the gate as if they have already done something wrong. How does someone ever hope to prove themselves if they don't have any idea what they have to prove? How does anyone show enough acceptance or caring for me if I am looking for the betrayal or lie even in the absence of one? The deck is already stacked against them.
Maybe that isn't the crux of it though... Perhaps there is a more fundamental place to begin from... Do I really believe what I want is even possible? For me or given who I am or what I have known about love and relationships in this life? The most obvious answer would have to be no. If I did the walls would be a moot point. That is an uncomfortable answer... My mind wants to question if anyone really believes they can have what they want if everyone is playing games at love all the time in dating and such... That train of thought is a distraction though, my way of my mind taking me on a tangent precisely because the answer is uncomfortable. The truth of the matter is love, my most coveted "thing" in this life, is for me deeply terrifying. It is placed on a high shelf just out of reach in part because I want it so deeply and something with that much power can't be trusted, and in part because love has wounded me into the marrow of my bones, now it feels that somehow it doesn't belong to me.
If the thing most needed by the human being, any human being, is protected against even in the searching or longing for it how do you escape that tickle of sorrow in the soul? All of us, every human on the planet needs love. If babies don't get it, even in the most minute drops they will simply die. If teenagers don't get it they become suicidal. If adults don't get it they turn to sex, drugs, alocohol, money, power and on and on. So what's my drug of choice? Besides being married to that soulful tickel? Well, I over give, over nurture, compensate for the lack I am given by giving more. There is some portion of my mind, usually not very conscious which feels she has to prove her worthiness of the thing by giving more until the person I care for finally sees they can trust me and therefore love me. It never works out that way. What I do, the truths I offer no matter how difficult for me to share, the acceptance I provide, and the support I give are never enough for them. And maybe this is just a mirroring of my own inability to really accept the love I am given for what it is because of my walls
How do you take yourself out from under the glass? What would it take to be able to do that? What happens after you do? If you have the sorrow because of your own actions or ways of being what are you losing if you choose its opposite? Does it boil down to recognizing you have an innate right to love and even if it bites you in the ass no one has been able to kill you yet and you can probably survive anything at this point. Besides, what good did it do you to survive all that torment and suffer so much if you won't let yourself have the one thing you believe makes life worth living?
The tickle that began a few months ago only grew over time. It crept up on me, this unwelcome understanding I have chosen always feeling a little alone even in a crowded room. I have been okay with that though for a really, really long time. And the choice I made out of survival so long ago was reinforced and the glass of my bell jar made a bit thicker with every betrayal after that. Here's the thing, until very recently I didn't see the way that choice was preventing the very things I have wanted most in my life. For me, money means only as much as it can do to serve me, its only value is what I can accomplish with it. In and of its self it is worthless paper. When we die it means nothing and if in life we choose it over love or passion or compassion we have wasted our lives. Fame is not something I am interested in, I can see in myself the capacity for my ego to over inflate given too many accolades and what could have started out as a lofty endeavor could be lost. Beauty is fleeting, time takes it away if not some twist of fate. But relationships, love, family, extending oneself for another... That has purpose, that serves something more essentially good, that has longevity and can feed the basic goodness in the world causing a domino effect.
Yet, here I am, me and my walls. I can't reconcile in my mind the dichotomy. I can never have the love affair I really want for example, if I can never allow myself to trust someone enough to let them show up in my life without having to prove themselves to me right out of the gate as if they have already done something wrong. How does someone ever hope to prove themselves if they don't have any idea what they have to prove? How does anyone show enough acceptance or caring for me if I am looking for the betrayal or lie even in the absence of one? The deck is already stacked against them.
Maybe that isn't the crux of it though... Perhaps there is a more fundamental place to begin from... Do I really believe what I want is even possible? For me or given who I am or what I have known about love and relationships in this life? The most obvious answer would have to be no. If I did the walls would be a moot point. That is an uncomfortable answer... My mind wants to question if anyone really believes they can have what they want if everyone is playing games at love all the time in dating and such... That train of thought is a distraction though, my way of my mind taking me on a tangent precisely because the answer is uncomfortable. The truth of the matter is love, my most coveted "thing" in this life, is for me deeply terrifying. It is placed on a high shelf just out of reach in part because I want it so deeply and something with that much power can't be trusted, and in part because love has wounded me into the marrow of my bones, now it feels that somehow it doesn't belong to me.
If the thing most needed by the human being, any human being, is protected against even in the searching or longing for it how do you escape that tickle of sorrow in the soul? All of us, every human on the planet needs love. If babies don't get it, even in the most minute drops they will simply die. If teenagers don't get it they become suicidal. If adults don't get it they turn to sex, drugs, alocohol, money, power and on and on. So what's my drug of choice? Besides being married to that soulful tickel? Well, I over give, over nurture, compensate for the lack I am given by giving more. There is some portion of my mind, usually not very conscious which feels she has to prove her worthiness of the thing by giving more until the person I care for finally sees they can trust me and therefore love me. It never works out that way. What I do, the truths I offer no matter how difficult for me to share, the acceptance I provide, and the support I give are never enough for them. And maybe this is just a mirroring of my own inability to really accept the love I am given for what it is because of my walls
How do you take yourself out from under the glass? What would it take to be able to do that? What happens after you do? If you have the sorrow because of your own actions or ways of being what are you losing if you choose its opposite? Does it boil down to recognizing you have an innate right to love and even if it bites you in the ass no one has been able to kill you yet and you can probably survive anything at this point. Besides, what good did it do you to survive all that torment and suffer so much if you won't let yourself have the one thing you believe makes life worth living?
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