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Friday, September 21, 2007

Sink or Swim

Today I cried. I am not a crier. I hold it in until I can’t anymore. I and the world around me would probably be better off if I did cry more, but I never have been able to well. It’s always been a sign of weakness to me. I don’t see others as weak for crying, but myself. I learned early on that it showed whoever was causing me pain that they had gotten to me, they had won.

With my some close friends, for a while I felt safe, and would easily cry around them. Eventually, some of them started using it against me, even though they encouraged it at the beginning. It became a weapon they could use to hurt me with.

There has always been a part of me that was closed off with people I care most. Unfortunately, they had to deal with all the baggage I had from my past, and I never was soft around them.

Lately, I haven’t been able to find a safe zone. There are a few people in my life that I could feel that way towards, but I just can’t seem to open up. If I actually admit how much I care, then it becomes too real. They then have weapons to hurt me with. Even if they don’t mean to, it happens.
It can be overwhelming to realize that the things you want most in life, you can’t have, and it’s because of yourself, not anyone or anything else. I have only myself to blame for the paths I have taken and will take in life. So often in life, I have found myself paralyzed with fear. Usually my response is to charge ahead, be damned with the consequences.

I stand on the edge of this cliff, looking over right now. I can turn around and go back, down the path I took up, knowing it’s pitfalls and smooth areas. I can take comfort in the easy way. Or, I can take a leap and jump into the water. I can hope and pray I don’t hit rocks, and that there is someone/something nearby to haul me in. I have not a single guarantee. I have no way to know what awaits me other than a vast ocean below me. I don’t know how to swim. I so very desperately want to jump. I want to feel the wind against my skin and hair as I take the plunge. I want to feel the water, to find out if it is cold or hot. I find myself so scared I am trembling though, and I can’t make the first move to jump. I look back, thinking how safe the way I came was. I also think how boring and long it was. When I look at the water again, I am reminded of how much freedom there is, of how much possible personal strength I can find. I can only pretend to guess at most of the pitfalls that route home has. I don’t even know if it leads towards home.

Where do I belong? Is the way home on that dry, rather lonely, sometimes funny path I took to get to this point? Or, is the way home down below, on the scary as hell, completely unsafe drop in land? Both ways inspire fear, longing, a sense of safety, the sense of the familiar. One provides known pitfalls, the other completely unknown.

I can only go with my instincts, but it’s going to take me time to figure out what they are telling me.

1 comment:

LittlePea said...

These are all things I've said to myself before so it was heartbreaking to read this. Don't even believe yourself weak for showing them that you're hurt. It take strength to allow yourself to be completely vulnerable with anyone. And anyone who is going to use that to hurt you later on is just just showing you who/what they are. So don't take it personally try to see it as an opportunity to teach yourself who you want in your life. There are always going to be people who disappoint us.

And there are always going to be times when we are afraid to push forward. Just trust yourself, you'll land on your feet.