I had found someone unlike anyone I'd ever met before - someone who was valuable to me and for the first time, truly worthy of the love that I had to offer. I felt good about loving him. I felt like a better person for knowing him and watching him slowly open up to me. I surprised myself in how much I had grown from the last time, the patience I had miraculously developed and how fulfilling everything was - from walking down the street to cuddling to a difficult conversation. Everything carried weight, everything carried meaning, my life was enriched.
I have never shied away from being a vulnerable person, and I've almost always been able to navigate, somehow, a world that does not reward vulnerability. Recently, it had become somewhat of a struggle. I didn't want to open up anymore and I didn't want to share how important he was to me. I retreated. Maybe on some level I suspected that the feeling was not going to be returned. It wasn't being reciprocated in the way I wanted and I didn't know what to do. But it didn't matter, because in an instant it was over.
And this is how it goes. This is what we do.
To develop yourself, to learn to love who you are, to be confident in what you have to offer the world, to share that with another human being, to show yourself, to love who they are, to see them, to give yourself freely, to have it all taken from you in one single conversation, to find a way to rebuild, and then to love again.
In truth, I envy them. I wish I could train myself to lock up what I feel. I wish I could live with my emotions so masterfully under control that I never had to share them. So others would never truly knew what I thought, so that I could only brush the surface of the pain.
Maybe this is how it goes. Is this what we do?
You harden yourself, you close yourself off, you learn to protect yourself, because every new experience seems to teach you the same lesson:
When you give little, you lose little.
When you give everything, you lose everything.
I have never shied away from being a vulnerable person, and I've almost always been able to navigate, somehow, a world that does not reward vulnerability. Recently, it had become somewhat of a struggle. I didn't want to open up anymore and I didn't want to share how important he was to me. I retreated. Maybe on some level I suspected that the feeling was not going to be returned. It wasn't being reciprocated in the way I wanted and I didn't know what to do. But it didn't matter, because in an instant it was over.
And this is how it goes. This is what we do.
To develop yourself, to learn to love who you are, to be confident in what you have to offer the world, to share that with another human being, to show yourself, to love who they are, to see them, to give yourself freely, to have it all taken from you in one single conversation, to find a way to rebuild, and then to love again.
In truth, I envy them. I wish I could train myself to lock up what I feel. I wish I could live with my emotions so masterfully under control that I never had to share them. So others would never truly knew what I thought, so that I could only brush the surface of the pain.
Maybe this is how it goes. Is this what we do?
You harden yourself, you close yourself off, you learn to protect yourself, because every new experience seems to teach you the same lesson:
When you give little, you lose little.
When you give everything, you lose everything.
Then there are times you give big and win big. And those times are worth the fight.
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