(no subject)
Wisdom for the day
'I don't remember anything else about that book, but I recall one crucial sentence perfectly. "Some patients," it said, "mistakenly believe that their loneliness is a product of another person's absence." I stopped and reread this maybe 10 times, but it still baffled me. I could have sworn that my loneliness was a product of my ex-significant other's absence. If not, then what on earth was it?
Finally, slowly, over the next several days, weeks, years, the light dawned: My loneliness, and the antidote to it, did not come from the significant others I'd loved and lost. I'd been emotionally isolated before I ever fell in love. Something about certain people helped me lower the drawbridge over the moat that separated me from the world, but in the final analysis, I was the one who'd actually done the trick. The power to bring me out of solitude -- or to push me back into it -- had never belonged to any other person. It was mine and only mine.'
-Martha Beck, CNN.com, "The Heartbreak Academy", Feb. 18th, 2008.
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So, I was perusing the news this morning, and I came across that article. I really liked it--felt I could relate with it. As someone that is just now recently trying to date again after a two-year hiatus, I can see with better clarity the walls that I have put up. I can see the blame I've mistakenly placed for my unhappiness.
You see, I have a penchant for broken men. Men who will keep me around as a way to assuage their own loneliness and to build themselves up. But when they felt they have done that...they go away. And I'm left behind. Broken myself.
I don't know why these men were so appealling to me. Maybe it's my own sense of needing to be needed, of wanting to be someone's rock. Of hoping that they might realize how much I really matter in the course of their lives...wishful thinking. They could never see beyond themselves, their own grief. I loved them--I really did, because despite these flaws they had a lot of great qualities that were worthy of loving-- but they never saw it. Too busy looking back and then forward. And when they left, then I did the same thing--a brutal cycle.
I also find myself attracted to the unattainable man--the man that I'll never actually disappoint because he is--
1) Too far away to actually logistically date.
2) Dating/pining for someone else.
3) Clearly not interested in anything other than a possible sexual relationship.
4) All of the above.
With the unattainable man, it's the fire without the burn; the lazy man's love. It's all the rushy feelings of infatuation without actually having to deal with real feelings. It's the "You know what this really is, but it's nice to pretend for a bit." It's the knowledge that you will never have to actually deliver yourself and find yourself wanting--That is, if you play by the rules. Which I don't. And I get hurt. I start running, and running...and then am left standing at the finish line, realizing that I just lost a race I was never supposed to run.
Extremely unhealthy, all of it. And I know that now. Maybe because I've really been really trying to work on myself, and find out what about me is really worthy of loving. And I think I've made a lot of head way in the right direction.
I'm a good person. I'm quirky and fun, and at times can be really beautiful in a non-conventional sense. My personality is good, and I'm generally a happy person. And now that I've stopped obsessing over people that will never see these good things, and wondering what it is about me that puts them off, I can see the better part of me. And it is good. And it is worth loving.
I am the leading lady in my own life, not the best friend. I am the master of my own fate in all things--and I now will give a resounding "no" to those who don't respect that. I won't put myself in self-imposed loneliness. I'm not going to let myself sabotage myself anymore.
The world is huge. And it can be mine.