Baggage Check!
It's always something isn't it. Heh.
Well, I have just been thinking lately about my life. Past, present and future. Yes I have had some free time on my hands as of late and introspection is inevitable, sorry. I have come up with baggage. Isn't it ironic that in an airport setting you always seem to be waiting on your baggage, or losing it all together . . . yet in relationships you can seem to rid yourself of it? Go to an airport and any hobo will steal your material baggage, get in a relationship and you couldn't give your emotional baggage away for free.
I've been thinking about how happy I am with Matty. But thinking about my present happy relationship with the man that I love brings questions of my past relationships. Then I remember that every relationship prior to this, I was lied to countless times. I was badly hurt. The problem with these relationships is that I didn't want to trust my intuition that something was awry. When I finally gave into my gut and checked into things, it was always me on the losing end. Finding out some horrible truth I never wanted to know . . . then going through the process of piecing myself back together.
Now I find myself in a confusing state. I am with a man that I love, that loves me back. And it is a truly wonderful feeling I was pretty sure just wasn't in the cards for me. But uh-oh, here comes the baggage of my past experiences. I have realized because I have been deceived every other time, that I am completely petrified it is going to happen again. I have no basis to think Matty would do this to me and I am certain that he wouldn't. But my experiences in the past have conditioned me to be paranoid and fearful of this. I am realizing that my past experiences have not only wounded me, but made my ability to trust another man astronomically hard. Of course it doesn't help that I have NEVER seen an example of a gay relationship where cheating, lying, or "opening the relationship" didn't occur. None of these things are acceptable to me.
Basically the point is this. I trust and love Matty. But there is always that voice in the back of my head saying, "Watch out . . . wait for that shoe to drop" or "Justin, you always lose at this thing called love, why should this time be any different". So then the question is this: How do you escape your conditioning and past baggage?
I am assuming it is something that just takes time, I hope anyway. I can't constantly freak out about every little thing because of what happened in my past. What completely different people did to me. But at the same time, I don't know how to turn off that scared little voice in my head either. At the same time, I know from my past that as soon as I become comfortable, feel safe, that is when it hits. Again . . . all past experiences. I refuse to work myself, or the man I love into a whirling dervish because of something that has nothing to do with either of us anymore.
Anyway, those are the neurotic thoughts for today. Leave it to good old J to be neurotic even when he is safely in a loving relationship.
Justin
Well, I have just been thinking lately about my life. Past, present and future. Yes I have had some free time on my hands as of late and introspection is inevitable, sorry. I have come up with baggage. Isn't it ironic that in an airport setting you always seem to be waiting on your baggage, or losing it all together . . . yet in relationships you can seem to rid yourself of it? Go to an airport and any hobo will steal your material baggage, get in a relationship and you couldn't give your emotional baggage away for free.
I've been thinking about how happy I am with Matty. But thinking about my present happy relationship with the man that I love brings questions of my past relationships. Then I remember that every relationship prior to this, I was lied to countless times. I was badly hurt. The problem with these relationships is that I didn't want to trust my intuition that something was awry. When I finally gave into my gut and checked into things, it was always me on the losing end. Finding out some horrible truth I never wanted to know . . . then going through the process of piecing myself back together.
Now I find myself in a confusing state. I am with a man that I love, that loves me back. And it is a truly wonderful feeling I was pretty sure just wasn't in the cards for me. But uh-oh, here comes the baggage of my past experiences. I have realized because I have been deceived every other time, that I am completely petrified it is going to happen again. I have no basis to think Matty would do this to me and I am certain that he wouldn't. But my experiences in the past have conditioned me to be paranoid and fearful of this. I am realizing that my past experiences have not only wounded me, but made my ability to trust another man astronomically hard. Of course it doesn't help that I have NEVER seen an example of a gay relationship where cheating, lying, or "opening the relationship" didn't occur. None of these things are acceptable to me.
Basically the point is this. I trust and love Matty. But there is always that voice in the back of my head saying, "Watch out . . . wait for that shoe to drop" or "Justin, you always lose at this thing called love, why should this time be any different". So then the question is this: How do you escape your conditioning and past baggage?
I am assuming it is something that just takes time, I hope anyway. I can't constantly freak out about every little thing because of what happened in my past. What completely different people did to me. But at the same time, I don't know how to turn off that scared little voice in my head either. At the same time, I know from my past that as soon as I become comfortable, feel safe, that is when it hits. Again . . . all past experiences. I refuse to work myself, or the man I love into a whirling dervish because of something that has nothing to do with either of us anymore.
Anyway, those are the neurotic thoughts for today. Leave it to good old J to be neurotic even when he is safely in a loving relationship.
Justin