I dreamt about him last night. Pieces of my sadness wax and wane. In his image he embodies my naive love. The kind of love where things were easy, passion endless and fulfillment could seep through me by osmosis in his proximity. The kind of love that’s only existence is outside of love. I miss that hope that I could ultimately escape my anxieties of love and intimacy by finding the right person.
Sometimes it takes everything in me to acknowledge my ugliness. It’s hard to look back on my relationship and see that in the moments when he felt hopeless, I felt the most powerful. Beautiful. Strong. Because the more desperately he needed me, the more he espoused those very things about me. And the more assured I was that he would never leave. Acting on some unconscious knowledge that the further I would walk away the closer he’d come, I became adept at running. I told myself that my unwavering ability to walk away at any point indicated independence. Not until long after we broke up and his desperation for me ceased did I realize how dependent my security was on his dependence. It’s a terrible thing to see that part of me. To own it fully.
With my acceptance came a great deal of anger that I had wrapped tightly around my heart to protect myself from all the other emotions that were constantly threatening to appear. Little by little they’d ooze through the cracks and take hold. Shame for my manipulations, humiliation that I wanted someone to hold me and uncertainty that in those moments when nobody could, that I could hold myself. And an overwhelming sadness. Sadness for the young girl who was so scared to want something. Sadness that she thought if she wanted something it would eventually burden people to the point of abandonment. Sadness that she thought she wasn’t worth the hassle and that her needs were a liability. So instead of sharing herself she locked everything that was hers inside until the exhaustion of being anonymous drove her so far away that there was no reaching her.
It took accepting those parts of me to see that I had cloaked my fear, masked it as independence and tirelessly paraded it around for those who dared to question. I had spent my life waiting to reveal myself to someone when the time was right, when I had a guarantee of how they would receive me. I have waited for over three decades and have found no such guarantee. Instead I’ve discovered that it’s the revealing of yourself to others that brings you closer to them just as it has brought me closer to myself. I believe that to let someone know you fully is the most courageous thing you can do in life. And I believe that those who can reveal even their ugliness to the people they fear losing most understand what it is to feel free.