Oh, you too?
Welcome, friends.
Romantic love has not gone well for me, historically. I'm good at friend love (and boundaries), sibling love. Puppy love.
But romance?
I've built a healthy 90 foot wall around it. With a moat. Barbed wire. Maybe a few feral pigs with oozies.
Spikes.
I've worked as hard as I could, while always feeling like a disappointment. Paid with money, time, and service for neglectful love. Lost my self in abusive love.
I've considered cats, but I'm allergic. Which might not be worse, but I do still think so. Plus they smell.
(and are cats)
((gross)).
My therapist and my 12 step group tell me that I Have Needs That Only Other People Can Fulfill. Like romantic love. Connection. Affection.
I agree, even though I don't want to.
So I'm Making An Effort.
After eight months of walling myself off in the joy room, six months of truly unfortunate and confused "dating," I'm considering Not Dressing Like A Pirate (preparing for the worst, like being boarded in the night by bigger, badder pirates). Assembling my skills from the reading and observing of healthy relationships, and therapy, and watching every single Global Glue Project interview and Recovery 2.0 interview, and adding them to my Faith, a thing that was born 14 months ago, that I lean on when it feels like the world and the internet are collapsing.
Today hit me with all of the Triggers, like the unwanted advances, the changes of plans, and the internet collapsing. And The Ben, telling me he's learned from What Went Wrong with us, and that he's Not Making The Same Mistakes This Time.
That This One is Worth Fighting For.
God.
(How I'd love to believe I'm Worth Fighting For).
And that's the side of the street that I get to own. Who wants to fight for a pirate, who has isolated herself behind a moat and clenched teeth?
My work is in smiling - letting the light in.
More worth, less adversary, less conquest.
Faith.
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