What do I want?
Seems as though I have spent a lifetime asking this question. Afraid to answer it. Afraid to examine it. I think because I was always asking the question in relation to someone else. What I wanted was always in relation to another.
Spending Valentine’s Day alone yesterday, made me re-evaluate. Made me confront a lifelong fear...that I could not ask for what I wanted, because of fear that the answer be no. Always afraid of my own intensity, fearing it too much for others, always making efforts to tamp it down, hold myself at bay, make myself more palatable.
What I realized yesterday was how dishonest I have been. How much I have pretended not to need in reactionary fear to what another might say or want. Yesterday I was faced with the truth of my life...I want to be connected to another. I want to be close, not distant. I have been most dishonest about this. Using distance to feel safe, when in reality what I wanted more was closeness. I was most deceitful in my interactions with others, pretending to be something that I am not.
What do I want?
Here it is...
I want to live my life in a manner that supports myself. I want to be able to cry when I feel the need, I want to be able to move toward others, not away. I do not want to be strategic, coy or smart. I want to be loving toward all. Not allowing all an all access pass to me, my life, but to love them anyway regardless of their importance in my life.
I want to own my feelings, instead of hiding from them and pretending they are other than they are. I want to be vulnerable and still feel some measure of safety. Guess what? You can’t. I want to risk being vulnerable, be willing to be rejected and to reject those deals that are less than what I want.
This is what I realized yesterday. That I was lying to myself. I do not want an endless parade of men, what I want is just one, just one to love and care about, one that I am important to, one that I mean the world to, the person he wants to talk to, fuck, laugh with. Just one to risk the sharing of my interiority with.
So on this 15th of February, the day after love overload, I am going to stop pretending that I am fine alone. I am going to confront my fear of rejection that has caused me to allow just anyone entrance to my life. I am going to go further within, so that I can have the courage to share myself, my whole self, when someone worthy comes along. I am going to treat myself with the respect that I have always thought was someone else’s to give to me. I am going to be bold, daring and honest about what I want. You are free to reject her if she doesn't fit what you need/want. This is the only way to find a loving and true connection.
Perhaps this will all result in me being more alone, more solitary. That is ok, at least I am not watering myself down into something that is less than honest.
Here is what I learned. Even if 95% of me is fine with casual encounters and being alone, if I deny the existence of that 5%, that needs something more, I am denying who I really am. I have allowed my fear of loving and losing again to make a lot of decisions for me.
Pretending that I do not want to feel those feelings again, fear of loving and losing too great to allow honesty to prevail. Fear of rejection causing me to allow all sorts of things that I do not really want in my life.
So I begin anew here. Allowing that 5% to define me, instead of allowing the 95% to dominate. Realizing that so long as I denied the smallest part of me, I would forever be the largest part in reaction to others.
Today it is not about being alone or with someone. It is about, instead, owning that I long for connection, true, deep connection with others in all the various capacities connection allows for. I can no longer engage pretending that casual encounters have meaning, are satisfying or hold any meaning for me. I do not need a lifetime commitment, but I do need all my relationships, regardless of their nature, to be founded on this most sincere and honest desire to care and be cared for. I can’t, I won’t participate in anything less...finally.

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