Hard to Love
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Sometimes I think this about myself. Actually, who am I kidding? I think this about myself every day. I’m someone who walks around expecting other people’s hearts to be like my own. For their genuineness to be true and not self serving. For others to care not only as much as I do but in the same way as I do. The slightest hint that someone isn’t at the level I’m at makes me wobble. It’s scary enough to put my heart out there without then wondering if the person loves me passed that tipping point of it being just enough that they won’t intentionally hurt me. That’s the part that rips me open, the intentional part. I have been someone who goes out of my way to make others happy and feel safe, even if it means I don’t end up feeling that way myself. I keep wondering why I haven’t found anyone who is willing to match my level of effort, thinking the problem is with me. Knowing now, that the problem is with me. I don’t love in a way that is healthy. I let other people consume me, control me and seek their own happiness. The problem comes when they choose their happiness in ways that they know will hurt me but they just don’t care enough to show some restraint. The momentary high of whatever it is they are doing is much more worth it than keeping my heart safe. I give them too much power over me. I expect too much. I am hard to love.
Then what do I do when they violate my boundaries over and over again? I try to shift my boundaries, thinking that perhaps I’m not being reasonable, that I’m being uncool, that I’m just being difficult. I stick with this person because I believed for so long that once you’ve said “I love you” then you work on it no matter what. I don’t just give up over silly little things, even though these silly things are just the tests for the bigger things that are coming my way. I don’t look at the person once they have a place in my heart and think we’re not compatible and I’m going to send you away with love now before we destroy each other. No, I instead roll out the red carpet, hand them a knife and let them go wild on me. I end up in situations, looking back over my shoulder at the man who says he loves me, and yet on the inside feeling completely unloved as I move through the motions he’s forcing me to do to try to feel loved. I allow myself to be bullied into doing things that were hard no’s, that got slammed repeatedly until they became soft no’s and then until just the whisper…
