I Would Rather Be Locked To You

This has way more to do with me than it has to do with you.

So this week (what is it? Wednesday?) will go in the record books as a brutal one. My already fragile ego has been kidnapped, patronized, chopped up into tiny little pieces, and stashed in the trunk. A total massacre of my self-perception. I’ve walked through two devastating blows in 4 days, and while I try really hard to appear indestructible – alas, I am not.

I sometimes wonder if I will ever outgrow a certain level of imprudence. I don't want to use the word "stupidity" - although that's really what it is; imprudence sounds a little less degrading. I often shock myself with how imprudent I can be. Especially with things that I am SO sure about - so certain, so secure, so confident - those are the things I seem to be most careless with. I don't plan for or intend for that - but that's been a pattern of mine. I thought I'd outgrown it after my last heartache, but apparently not. I don’t know why I’m surprised by it this time.

I'm not sure that I can fault anyone else here - but I'm sorta trying to figure out if I can. In one situation, more than anything else, I feel really dumb. I feel stupid for believing that he was someone I could, and really wanted to marry. I am terrified when I think about how easy a decision that was for me. It makes me cry when I think about the part of my heart that I gave someone who not only had NO idea he had it, but that it turns out, I didn't want him to have it anyway. I was ready to marry him. Seriously ready to marry him. I am ashamed that I entered into that so quickly, without communicating a word. Right this minute, I can laugh at that. I can't blame anyone but myself for that kind of imprudence. On the other hand, I made decisions based solely on the fact that I didn’t ever want to end up in a situation where I had conjured up who this one actually was, based on who I wanted him to be. I worked really hard to communicate well and think on what was true in order to avoid that. And really, I did a pretty good job. And he never verbally communicated anything else. But I still feel duped. My problem is that I hold more weight in actions than I do words, and that is where things get confusing. I can’t blame him for that, because I don’t know that I could honestly say that he did anything wrong, but there is an overwhelming feeling of having been bamboozled. I misread, misinterpreted, maybe I just didn’t ask the right questions at the right time – either way I ended up on a different page altogether. I communicated better than I probably ever have, and have remained cautious and optimistic and realistic from day one. But my "greatness" was either just a turn off, or well - not enough.

It's impossible to shine in a room with either one. And all I really want is to be the kind of girl that makes someone else better. I want to be the kind of girl who stands beside, enables, and perfectly complements the man she is next to. I never was that for one, and I could never tell with the other. I should have seen that.

I've done everything I can to try and find some sort of resolve; to figure out how to keep going without lots of change and while keeping things “OK”. But all I keep coming back to is the monumental imprudence that brought me here in the first place. On one hand, I was running around exclaiming that I loved him for who he was, not for how he made me feel, or for who he was with me. I kept boasting about the fact that I loved him because it had nothing to do with me, and there was a part of me that felt totally liberated by that - but maybe it should have had something to do with me. And perhaps that is why it was so easy for me to just fall right out of that kind of love. Because I did, I fell right out of it just as quickly as I fell in it. On the other hand, I felt more like myself with him than I have in a really long time. And not only was that really refreshing for me – I felt like it was actually “OK” for me to be who I am – it was accepted & welcomed & dare I say enjoyed, and man – that just does things to a girls confidence. I’d really like to be mad about the fact that I can’t escape feeling like, enjoyable as I am, it’s just not enough.

I'm caught in a position of having to acknowledge my hasty conclusions & refusal to be candid on the one hand, in comparison with my cautions and outrageously forward advances on the other. In both instances, I am left just as empty handed as I came in. I can't & I don't blame anyone else. I honestly did this to myself. It just came all at once and that is turning out to be more than I can handle. The timing is terrible.

And that is where I am left. In both cases, I feel utterly inadequate.

I was completely available – right in front of him - for two years. Exhibiting my very best behavior (which is maybe why I have been so uninhibited lately?) - which is honestly not me at all - very wifey and quiet and encouraging and domestic. I love those things, and I will no doubt knock the socks off some poor soul with those skills someday. But I will never ever be a smarty pants, law student, beauty queen. That's just not who I am. It's not what I would have ever guessed he wanted. I know that he never intended this, and I can't blame him because I never made sure that he knew how I felt - but I feel absolutely worthless in his world. I am a warm body in the pew next to him. I am a dog-sitter. Outside of those two roles, I don't know that anything about me and who I am is anything that he wants or needs. And it turns out that’s ok, because I don’t want him needing me anyway.

And then there's you, who came right out of nowhere and saw right through my "good" behavior and made me more comfortable with myself than I've been in a long time. I can’t make you want something that you don’t want, or aren’t ready for, and I can’t blame you for that. It is what it is. I can be, and I am, really great. Apparently you know that. And what’s great for you means nothing to someone else, and is perfection for another.

It’ll take me a while to figure out how to adjust. And chances are I will cease to be as great in the time of transition. I know what I want – I just don’t know that what I want is right. In the meantime, I will struggle with feeling adequate and worthy and wiggle and worm around until I find the right place for me to fit.

I hope that wherever that is, it includes both.

Oh no
Here comes that sun again
That means another day
Without you my friend
And it hurts me
To look into the mirror at myself
And it hurts even more
To have to be with somebody else
And its so hard to do
And so easy to say
But sometimes
Sometimes you just have to walk away
Walk away
With so many people
To love in my life
Why do I worry
About one
But you put the happy
In my ness
You put the good times
Into my fun
And its so hard to do
And so easy to say
But sometimes
Sometimes you just have to walk away
Walk away
And head for the door
Weve tried the goodbye
So many days
We walk in the same direction
So that we could never stray
They say if you love somebody
Than you have got to set them free
But I would rather be locked to you
Than live in this pain and misery
They say time will
Make all this go away
But its time that has taken my tomorrows
And turned them into yesterdays
And once again that rising sun
Is dropping on down
And once again you my friend
Are nowhere to be found
And its so hard to do
And so easy to say
But sometimes
Sometimes you just have to walk away
Walk away
And head for the door
You just walk away
Walk away