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greenstormI used to be very good at vulnerability, here and elsewhere in my life. It comes much harder for me now.
The essence of vulnerability is tearing down walls and expectation. It's putting out what's really there. In that way it's easier as an objective process, easier with a little emotional distance.
The thing is, I have no emotional distance from myself. I love my life, very much. I'm invested in it remaining, and vulnerability threatens that.
Still, trying to be right, proper, good all the time, it's tiring. Then I come here to write and nothing really happens.
With the end of the relationship with Blake, and during it to some extent, I was told some things -- in anger -- by a smart person who was motivated to get a reaction from me. At the time it was ridiculous, but those words do sink in. I don't want to allow him power, but sometimes power can be taken, and I don't think I'm doing myself any favours by pretending it away.
I actually wrote a post awhile ago, letting my own voice stand, but I think maybe it's time to put some of the received messages out there. Many are contradictory to my experience of my own life, but they whisper loudly some days.
It's not fair to one person I love if I also love other people
No one will ever be able to wholeheartedly love me if I do not return the favour
Love creates obligation
Other people deserve my presence and attention
Sex is not its own purpose, but instead a powerful currency
Sex is disgusting
Sex is all-powerful
A physical connection between people is dirty, wrong, or something of which to be ashamed
Love is diminished through being shared
Comparison can only diminish the things being compared
I have never experienced real love
I am not capable of empathy
It's not real love unless you deny important parts of yourself to enable it
Nobody could love me, but instead keep me around in the hopes of easy sex
Sex creates obligation for continuation of the same
Thinking before I act is manipulation
I am selfish and heedless of what others need
I ask for too much
I give too little
I am diminished by the company I keep
It's a heavy list, and there's a lot more in there. I'm still mostly numb as I write it. I can see these things in my mind but I'm too exhausted to care about them.
And really all this is mostly setup. The punch line, the one that makes me so tired I can barely write, that shuts my eyes and sends me curling into bed, is that I love people, plural, quite a lot, and that I want them to love me. And of course there's some of that happening now, with the heavy curtain of guilt at all my actions lifted. Despite explicitly negotiating that it was okay for me to be like this from the very beginning (and how is that a thing to negotiate, rather than 'should we be together given that I am like this?') I've spent so much time worrying, fearing, and so very much time guilting almost every time I received a text message from a person of potential attraction, hugged a friend, thought fondly of someone... oh gods, guys, I'm too tired to follow my own sentences from beginning to end, but I want to get this out there. I refuse to keep it in here much longer.
I don't think he was ill-intentioned. How could this have happened? How could we not at least have parted sooner, with less destruction all 'round? Is he really damaged, or just... hardened, grown a carapace to protect what he always was?
How do I avoid this again? What do I even want, now that the world is spreading out in front of me? How can I avoid the 'who' of what I want stealing away the 'what' again?
Oh, I give up for today. Be well.
The essence of vulnerability is tearing down walls and expectation. It's putting out what's really there. In that way it's easier as an objective process, easier with a little emotional distance.
The thing is, I have no emotional distance from myself. I love my life, very much. I'm invested in it remaining, and vulnerability threatens that.
Still, trying to be right, proper, good all the time, it's tiring. Then I come here to write and nothing really happens.
With the end of the relationship with Blake, and during it to some extent, I was told some things -- in anger -- by a smart person who was motivated to get a reaction from me. At the time it was ridiculous, but those words do sink in. I don't want to allow him power, but sometimes power can be taken, and I don't think I'm doing myself any favours by pretending it away.
I actually wrote a post awhile ago, letting my own voice stand, but I think maybe it's time to put some of the received messages out there. Many are contradictory to my experience of my own life, but they whisper loudly some days.
It's not fair to one person I love if I also love other people
No one will ever be able to wholeheartedly love me if I do not return the favour
Love creates obligation
Other people deserve my presence and attention
Sex is not its own purpose, but instead a powerful currency
Sex is disgusting
Sex is all-powerful
A physical connection between people is dirty, wrong, or something of which to be ashamed
Love is diminished through being shared
Comparison can only diminish the things being compared
I have never experienced real love
I am not capable of empathy
It's not real love unless you deny important parts of yourself to enable it
Nobody could love me, but instead keep me around in the hopes of easy sex
Sex creates obligation for continuation of the same
Thinking before I act is manipulation
I am selfish and heedless of what others need
I ask for too much
I give too little
I am diminished by the company I keep
It's a heavy list, and there's a lot more in there. I'm still mostly numb as I write it. I can see these things in my mind but I'm too exhausted to care about them.
And really all this is mostly setup. The punch line, the one that makes me so tired I can barely write, that shuts my eyes and sends me curling into bed, is that I love people, plural, quite a lot, and that I want them to love me. And of course there's some of that happening now, with the heavy curtain of guilt at all my actions lifted. Despite explicitly negotiating that it was okay for me to be like this from the very beginning (and how is that a thing to negotiate, rather than 'should we be together given that I am like this?') I've spent so much time worrying, fearing, and so very much time guilting almost every time I received a text message from a person of potential attraction, hugged a friend, thought fondly of someone... oh gods, guys, I'm too tired to follow my own sentences from beginning to end, but I want to get this out there. I refuse to keep it in here much longer.
I don't think he was ill-intentioned. How could this have happened? How could we not at least have parted sooner, with less destruction all 'round? Is he really damaged, or just... hardened, grown a carapace to protect what he always was?
How do I avoid this again? What do I even want, now that the world is spreading out in front of me? How can I avoid the 'who' of what I want stealing away the 'what' again?
Oh, I give up for today. Be well.
