Sometimes

Sometimes when I look at my life I wonder if I've made the best choices for myself. Even when I'm happy and blessed there are occurrences that give me pause. My intuition raises red flags and I don't know if it's my inability to trust or an actual warning. How do I differentiate between my brain "making up a story" about the situation and the reality of the situation?

I know that I have the power to respond to whatever enters my life and experience these as positive or negative but what if my choice is, in effect, burying my head in the sand (metaphorically speaking)? Am I avoiding what is real or rewriting the made-up version?

I don't trust, this has already been established. I don't trust you. In fact, I can count on my hands those people in whom I have confidently placed my trust. I bet that most people believe they are on this list but the truth is that they aren't. Just because I give you some power to hurt me doesn't mean that I don't believe you won't. On the contrary, I'm basically waiting for you to destroy me. I hope you won't but I don't really believe that it won't happen...someday. 

I read into conversations, choices and statements. I believe that people are most truthful when they don't believe anyone is looking closely at what they say or do. An off-hand remark is usually more accurate than some thing you spend time rehearsing in your mind.

I do believe that people generally want to do the right thing, say the right thing, be the right thing. I don't think you want to destroy me or our relationship but I do think you may with the unconscious choices you make which ultimately affect us. 

So, do I brace myself or not? Do I keep stepping into the situation fully, hoping that you do too? One of my greatest fears is to find myself in a relationship with someone who never really got into it, who tested the water rather than jumped in feet first. Today, I feel like you have been splashing around in the pool and, while it looks like you're making moves to get in, you really aren't planning on it...ever.

Sometimes I just don't know what to do.

Paranoia

She is one of the most destructive forces in nature this paranoia.


She has her nasty claws deep inside me today. She's been creeping up behind me for some time now and I've felt her presence like a haunting, stalking. I turned to face her, to protest with facts and figures but she laughed at me, reached out, grabbed hold of my heart.


Now I see only evidence, feel only panic. I cannot sort through the fiction to find any truth. My critical eye is turned inward and I see all those aspects of me which are less than enough. I don't believe. I don't believe you. I don't believe anyone.


She will break me. She will break me piece-by-fragile-piece until there is nothing left. She is horrible to me, pointing out all those times in the past when she was right, when she knew best, when I was insignificant.


I am afraid; and, fear only reinforces her messages to me and allows those claws to sink deeper.


I am alone. I do not know how to share my feelings with anyone without damaging the relationship because my message will be clear: I do not trust. How can anyone love me if I do not trust?


Yet that is how paranoia finds her way back into my life, because trust can be freely given and then irrevocably destroyed. Doesn't take much, I realize, to trigger my response to trust. It is not a secret...but what do I do now when she has brought me completely to my knees and I need help to stand up and fight back, when I am too exhausted and weak to push her away, when she has drained me of every ounce of self-confidence I possessed?


She is destroying me and I don't know how to stop her.

Honesty

He asked me if I still love you.

I could have lied. I could have said, "No, not anymore." But lying will get me nowhere and fast. I didn't say anything, not at first. I tried to think of how to say the words without hurting him, without doing damage to our fragile beginning and without lying. My mind raced and my heart panicked. What if I tell the truth and he walks away?

He said, "It's okay if you do. I don't expect you to suddenly stop feeling. I'm only asking for a chance."

"Yes, I still love him," I admitted. I waited for the inevitable abandonment which didn't come. He put his arms around me and said, "I will wait."

I don't believe that he loves me...not yet, but I know that it's a possibility, something on the horizon, and that as he comes to love me, I will love him. I am not sure how to feel about this and it's like the proverbial "elephant in the room." There was a time when I couldn't fathom loving anyone else but you.

I don't want to hurt you. I don't want to stop loving you. Maybe I never will. Maybe you will always own a part of my heart. Whether he has the rest or someone else wrestles it away from him is something for the future to decide. My wish, before this moment, yesterday, was that you would wrestle what was yours back from him, that you would declare that I belong to you.

Yes, I know. You made your choice and we both get to suffer for it--that's the part that is hard for me. I love you so much that knowing that you hurt, that you suffer, that your happiness is not secured for all time hurts my heart. You were the salve to soothe my soul and I wanted to be the same for you...I know, you said, it's not to be. You made the choice that is right for you, for your life and your family.

He is breaking through the walls and he will win the prize. I will let him. I'm sorry but I won't go through life without love, without someone IN my life, loving me, letting me love him openly and absolutely. So I will let him break down the walls, the same walls you tore through almost one year ago, walls I put back into place when you made your fateful choice about us. Don't cut me out of your life. I believe that someday we'll be in a place where being friends and knowing what's happening to the other won't hurt, won't harm, won't destroy.

If he asks again, my answer will be different.

Still

Nearly a month has gone past since you said that you no longer feel the same way about me as you did, as I do about you--in essence, that you don't love me anymore. I have felt every possible emotion and feeling. And then just when I think I'm making progress I see you...but not you.

I was walking to an appointment and I saw you walking in front of me. I hurried my steps, apprehensive that it would be you, terrorized that it wasn't. I touched your arm and you turned. "I'm sorry; I thought you were someone else." I moved away, head down to hide the tears. "Why?" I asked myself, "Why is he still affecting me? Why do I still miss him?"

More often than not I want to reach out, beg you to come back to me, that I will take whatever I can get, whatever crumb is thrown my way because nothing is so painful and the memories only rub my wounds more raw. I don't want to hide away my heart, lock it away from love but at some point the pain becomes more than I can stand.

I know. I know that reaching out and begging will only bring more pain. I have to believe that my heart will heal, that I'll move on, that someone new will love me and I will eventually let him into my heart. Remember how hard it was to get me to lower my defenses? He will find the same potholes and speed bumps. Unfortunately those potholes are now deeper and the speed bumps sharper. I'm not blaming you. I accept full responsibility for my actions and the consequences.

I realy don't want to keep talking about this and I certainly don't want to be feeling this way anymore. You don't love me. I get that. You don't want me anymore. I get that. So why would I take you back were you to call me, tell me you changed your mind? One word, one stupid, little word.

Still.

I still love you.
I still miss you.
I still cry and hurt.
I still want you.
I still do.

Lost

Every once in a while I see a child and my heart hurts. Not because of the conclusion you may automatically jump to, no, this is for the loss of an opportunity. And, sometimes, following closely behind, is the realization that my life is not exactly how I had hoped it would be when I dreamed of it as a little girl.

I won't address every aspect of my current life that doesn't meet the dreams I had as a child, I only want to speak about having a family. Yes, this could be surprising to folks who know me--I wanted my own family. I wanted a husband and children.

I remember as a teenager thinking that eleven children would be fabulous. We'd have a football team as long as everyone played both sides. Or maybe nine kids and our very own baseball team. I was raised in a family of 5 which is technically a basketball team and that might work. As I got older and more selfish I realized tennis doubles would probably be best.

Then I didn't get married which will need to be a separate post. As the years ticked by and I remained unmarried I tried to cut the need for my own children, my own family, out of my heart. I figured that if I could convince myself that I didn't want a family the pain I was feeling would go away. All the convincing in the world wasn't working though and my heart hurt a lot. I struggled attending church because all around me I saw this thing I wanted but couldn't find or get. I made me wrong, incomplete and undesirable because I wasn't married with children.

I met a man with a small daughter and we fell in love. One night, laying in bed next to him, I realized that I loved her too and my heart started to heal from the pain of not being a mother. I mean, if I couldn't be a biological mother, at least I could be a step-mom. For years that role met the needs I had and had been burying away. My husband didn't want more children so I convinced myself that I didn't either.

After years of physical suffering, I decided that I wasn't ever going to use my uterus so I had a hysterectomy. It wasn't a decision that I made overnight, it was years in the making. The freedom from the constant recurring pain is indescribable--just as indescribable as the pain since my teenage years. I don't regret that choice. I made the best decision I could with the information I had at the time.

My heart hasn't yearned for a child or for children. I'm not one of those 40-something women who suddenly must have a kid or my life won't be complete. I can understand the desire to procreate or even to care for a child. I just don't have those desperate feelings.

Yet, every once in a while I see a small child and, for whatever reason, I want to be a mom. I feel the enormity of the lost opportunities crash all around me and have to grieve again. I wonder what it would feel like to hold a child in my now non-existent womb. I wonder how I'd be as a parent. I wonder what my children's names would be, what color hair they would have, how different their personalities would be.

I did make a good step-mom and maybe I can be a step-mom again but as I continue on as an unmarried woman I see the probabilities of that role slip farther and farther away. So I am back to trying to convince myself that I don't want my own little family. I try to convince myself that "Aunt" is enough. I try to feel fulfilled as a woman without having the chance to be a mother.

Yet...I still want that dream, I still want the husband and family.

Lucky

I am amazing.

When I look in the mirror I don't always see myself as others see me. Today I see a strong, powerful, amazing woman. I'm open, caring, generous, loving, talented. Sure, I can be cautious and afraid--I'm human after all--but mostly I am amazing.

And...I loved you. Of all the candidates to choose from, I opened my heart to you and I let you in. You may have battered at the door, I still had to undo the lock. I chose you. I remember the moment when I picked, standing on the corner of the city street on a chilly, overcast day, I said "Yes."

I will not regret my choice, that decision to open the way, nor will I dwell on the times I let fear hold me back because I eventually allowed myself to be loved and to love...completely, absolutely, without restraint. I never wanted you to be different, I only wanted the situation to be changed--a situation you would not, will not change.

Now I want to point out (just in case denial clouds your vision entirely) that you are the luckiest man alive.

But your luck has run out.

Pain

Nothing hurts like "I don't love you anymore." Nothing.

First, there was surprise. Could this be happening? Next, humiliation. All those stupid things I did, thinking I was loved. How could I be so stupid? After the shock came the pain. Pain accompanied by tears. I guess I should have expected this--the situation was not sustainable. Unfortunately, since my feelings hadn't changed, I was surprised.

Friends, family and even my therapist are quick to point out that I do deserve to be loved, to be chosen over all others but the truth is I don't really believe it. The evidence? If I believed I deserve to be loved and chosen above all other women, I would be. I wouldn't take just the crumbs offered to me by men who cannot or will not give me all that I deserve, all that I need.

I wish there was some magic pill or incantation I could say that would alter what I believe about myself and my life. I'm 45-years-old and I want to be loved. It's not a crime and it doesn't make me weak or less.

So you may never read this, may never know how much your words hurt me. Maybe you know. Maybe you care that your words hurt me. Maybe you don't and it can't matter to me, not anymore. Now I have to say enough is enough. Now I have to love me more than I love you. Now the pain of loving you is greater than not loving you.

While the pain persists all I can do is endure, wait it out and get to the same place...where I can say "I don't love you anymore."