fool around

 I spent my whole life believing that having a strong reaction to men was normal. That when I felt intense attraction immediately that it meant it was true love. It was a feeling to count on. That true love is supposed to just happen. You see someone and you just know they "are the one." I was fooled every time. I was attracted to a toxic kind of love. One that I needed to heal in someone else before I was able to heal myself. It fell through. I fell on my ass. I fell on my ass in love and out of it. It was all I knew, breathed, and was crushing the whole time I had it. Even when I didn't have it anymore, I still felt like it took over my entire being. When I started to heal that part of myself, I began to think that intense and quick love wasn't something to trust. The healing I have done suggested a big blast of heart swelling wasn't real, it was otherwise. I realized that feelings are supposed to come slowly. They should trickle in little by little and that it would feel like I was safe, secure. The right people will wait for me to open my heart back up. To trust that I won't go anywhere in the meantime. That feeling vulnerable while I healed, was okay. My friendships built this way. I took my time getting to know them. To love them. And let them love me back. Until it felt natural to say, I love you. I just hadn't experienced it with someone romantically who reciprocated since I had made this realization. I had to fall for men and be disappointed time and time again. Thinking, I'll just be alone forever. It's fine. I would know it if it was something worth falling into when it happened. But, it doesn't work that way, either. It isn't healthy to feel intense attraction right away. It's infatuation. Usually with unresolved trauma it's a gateway to feeling that your gut reaction is not actually scared, but in love! Not to discredit anyone who feels immensely for someone and it feels right and it's healthy, sure. That works, too. I am saying, for me, it isn't a good sign when I am immediately and intensely attracted to a man. I didn't have the type of childhood that leads me to believe that "true love" should be something I recognize easily. I only knew traumatic love. True love isn't that. The love I had always known was intense, overpowering, and debilitating infatuation. It was a desire to make the other person feel good. No matter what I actually felt. Once I started listening to my gut, I realized its true intent all along was to protect me. I just didn't know how to recognize when it was good or bad. It all felt the same. It was intense feelings and I had them. It must be true love at first sight. 

I never knew how to enjoy a moment with a man. I was always running through a list of things; does he like me? Am I good enough to love? Does he like who I am? Should I change everything about myself to cater to what he needs? Should I only show the parts of myself that he might like? Maybe if I am perfect, he will love me. I couldn't accept that sometimes, moments just are for enjoying. I couldn't fathom a day for what it was without feeling insecure. I didn't learn how to just "be alone" for many years. I kept thinking that it was just something I was doing until I found a big, all encompassing man to take away all my free time. Life would start beginning when I could share it with a man. I fought it sometimes. The feeling that my life should belong to me. Ultimately, not until choosing to "fake it 'til I made it" until I really did make it, did I start to enjoy being alone. To the point where I thought, do I really even want to share my time with a man? Truly, they can take up all the space in the room without even trying it. Did I want that? Is it possible to find a man who will just take up some of my time, appropriately? To enjoy spending time with me, without too much distractions? To help remind me to enjoy the moment, even if it's fleeting? I wasn't able to find a man who shared my political views and my sexual needs and who wanted to just appreciate who I am at wherever I am. I struggled with the question What if I was in shape? The most, but couldn't a man love me for who I am, right now? Then later, the right man would. I had lost all hope that any such man existed. Truly. For a very long time. I have to have hope that he does exist. That there are lots of men that fit my expectations of the bare minimum of what I need in a partner. But, would this man come out and talk to me? How would I find him? How do I know when I do? If I'm not hit with love like a brick to the face, how do I know if I am punched by love?

Spoiler alert: It doesn't actually matter if "he" exists or not. I exist. I am here. 

There is something wonderful and freeing when you stop trying to find someone to share your life with and just build the life you have. To work on yourself and your own interests. To indulge and devour a life of your own luxury. I can wear whatever I want, eat whatever I want, read whenever I want... It was so freeing that I was okay, I was accepting the inevitable. I can be alone. I am good at this. I didn't know how good I was at being alone sometimes. I would reach out and spend time with friends on a rotation when it felt like the right time to try to be social. When I felt lonely, I just started another book. If I wanted to wear a comfortable over sized t shirt and sweater, I could. If I wanted to put on a dress and take a walk and feel by body move in the wind, I could. I suddenly didn't care what other people thought of me. Of their perception of who I am. I know who I am. I don't care what someone else thinks I am. That's not my problem. I like who I am. I love myself. I love spending time with myself. I don't want to have fat rolls, but I love them too. Those were probably some nights spent feeling lonely and working through the feelings. My body shows that I have been trying to work on myself. Even if it doesn't seem that way to a stranger. I don't care what a stranger thinks about me though. I earned this free time. This fat roll. This healed heart. I own it all. I earned it all. There is still a pain of wanting someone to touch, to need, to immerse in, that is the hardest part. To know the number of people who have hugged you within a week, a month, a whole winter. To be able to count that on your one hand. It's devastating to be that lonely. To dream of someone comforting you in any capacity, to wake up and know it was a feeling you can't get in real life. It was just a dream. You can't just go find someone to cuddle with. It takes time to do build that sort of relationship. It's not immediate with the right person. I could respond to the offers of sexual or physical comfort and choose a night to indulge physically, but it's not what I wanted. Ultimately, I couldn't follow through with giving a piece of myself to someone and take a piece of them, temporarily. I want permanency or the potential of it, or nothing at all. So I chose nothing at all. 

Maybe I am and always will be delusional. I wonder if I am holding back a bit, just for the sake of self preservation. Am I building feelings towards a dead end? Do I continue to build glass walls for myself and call it healing? Do I kiss the top of a man's head and enjoy the moment for what it is? Yes. But, what will it mean to me when the feelings inevitably starts to hang in limbo? When the tide starts to turn? When I want more? That is a silly question, I always want more. When talking for hours and the other parts of our lives start feeling separate, compartmentalized. What should I do when I think, what if I do want more?Did you want to be an included in the other parts of my life? Do I want you there? Is it too soon to wonder? Is it too much to ask? Isn't it always too much to ask, from me? Not everyone can be a sappy, idiot like me, I suppose. I wonder what people saw when they looked into my eyes in the past, because it does always seem like they inferred things that may or may not be there, but maybe. Sometimes I thought, maybe I do feel this strongly about the potential of more, but it's not okay right now for this man to assume that I want it immediately and maybe it's not a good sign that they are trying to read my mind without asking what I think- no matter the validity. But, now that I am not in an unhealthy relationship, I just think, I don't think I should feel stronger than I do right now. I can't say I'll feel more or less strongly without time, but I can say that I definitely feel more strongly than I did before, that is saying something. This is what it feels like to build the feelings. To feel the way I do right now isn't bad. It just isn't something I have to put into words right now. But the answer very well could be, am I alone in even feeling what I do feel? I realize, this is the scariest part of starting to really like someone. I can say, I like this man as more than a friend. I can say that I like them. I am leaning towards really liking them. I realize I am used to getting hurt. I hate that I am used to it. Or, at least, I grew to understand why and to not let it bother me as much. How many times can a heart be broken until it just stays that way? The repairs can only be made by my hand, but that doesn't always heal it all the way. I need to feel it all and let it fill in the gaps until it breaks or bursts free. There is only one way to find out- which takes time. I cannot say even what I feel except I do feel. And I feel it now. I feel the gaps. I feel the space that was made for someone else to come in. It's open and waiting. That's always the scariest part. Hoping that I won't get fooled again. Waiting to see if they even want to.

Isn't it horrifying to be this vulnerable? I feel like it is. It's so hard to be me and feel everything I do and lay my heart of my sleeve, but as I got older and more mature, it's at least somewhat less obvious how I feel to others. Even if what I do feel is, just stay. Or come back. Or come closer. Or tell me everything. It's not a big bang of emotions, but more of a subtle wanting of more. I can just go about my day and be fine, because the routine of the expected is there. I see the pattern and I let it be that way. Because, if it is up to me, there is no pattern, but more. As simple as that. More talking, more touching, more laughing, more comfortable silence. Just... more of what is already here. Not all the time. Not encompassing. Not engrossing. Not devouring. Just the simplicity in being unmasked and myself. Wanting that feeling to last a few more moments. A few more lingering minutes. It doesn't feel like I'm not getting those. That doesn't stop the desire for more. It's like being thirsty for so long and finally getting to drink water. If I drink too much, I'll be sick. I don't want it all at once. I want it little by little. For as long as I am allowed to have it. To sip a little and know I want more and more. I think that is what a healthy love should look like. That's what I want it to be. I hope that is what it is. I hope that is what I'll get. What I need. What I want. What I deserve. A slow, lingering built up love. One to enjoy. And give.