Hey —
So, I know things were tense this morning and I’m really sorry for being so weird and snippy. I’m not sure what the trigger was but I was journalling after you left and wound my way to the fact that some part of me still – even after all this time so very much damn therapy and meditation, lol – doesn’t know how to belong to clubs that would have me as a member… I get all sabotage’y maybe? Defensive? Some kind of (bargain-basement-when-will-it-fucking-end) insecurity detonates to wipe out all the good things some part of me obviously still doesn’t think I deserve…
It seems pretty basic when I write it out like this… Like something I should just be able to “get over,” you know? Have a little loving chat with those parts of me? But, it obviously isn’t as easy as all that… If it were, then my life would likely have been very different than it has been.
I’m not used to someone who just meets me with love and acceptance where I am in my moments.
And that really is what you do.
I’ve tried to do that for others my whole life. I’ve done loving pas de deux with repression, self-involvement, neediness, with limited self-awareness, with others’ brutal insecurities along with my own. I’ve created (consciously and unconsciously) all kinds of systems to take care of others, be there for others, offer insight and calm support to others – some that fed my ego in addictive ways, some that were more whole and true, some that I am sure were never received in the ways I hoped and left their own wakes of reasonable rage and disappointment, some that just sucked me dry – but it’s still weird when people even try do any version of those things for me. Truthfully, I think one of my worst nightmares is being a drain on others… The “burdeny feels” that I talk about sometimes and that I intellectually understand aren’t healthy…
And, I should be more honest than this because it isn’t really when “people” do those things for me that I get surprised and nutty… It’s that I have so few references for being loved in this way by a man, by a male human/partner/mate-like-something in ways I recognize and value that I don’t always know what to do with myself when you do it… I experience an acute failure in my graciousness of spirit.
It’s going to sound arrogant as fuck, but this morning some part of me could feel that you were “ahead” of me on this one and I’m not used to that either… I do a lot of very deliberate emotional work. I feel like I’ve earned what scant wisdom I have managed to glean from the universe with attention and care (more arrogance?)… One man I once cared for and loved so, so much quipped that I “needed to wait for the next Gandhi” to find a partner who would actually suit me. He didn’t mean it in a mean way but it was nonetheless a backhanded sort of compliment that bespoke his insecurities as much as it articulated some version of my nature… But you… I mean, neither of us are “Gandhi,” lol….
But you…
This morning, and at so many other times, you know what demons I was wrestling before I do… I can see it in your eyes, feel it in your calm. I’ve had that with the women in my life, especially as I’ve gotten older, but it’s hardly ever happened with men, no-less a man I am with… And maybe that’s just because those men chose not to share? Maybe I somehow (or whatever didn’t fit between us) made them feel unsafe to share their observations of me with me? It’s definitely possible, though I am confident that with some of them those types of observations were just not in their wheelhouse… They are your wheelhouse, though, and I am so grateful for that.
Please do not mistake me, either, I’ve been loved by men before you and I have loved men before you… But, love is not enough if there is no ability to for it to saturate… Emulsify… I dunno’… With the few men who came before you it was more like I “knew” I was loved than that I felt it??? It wasn’t sustaining (for either of us) and so our connections didn’t last.
You get ahead of me and wait with love and kindness and patience for me catch up.
You let me do the same for you when it’s my turn.
With you, I feel loved.
I feel welcome and seen.
It really is beautiful to me. Even if I’m being weird and bitchy and sabotage’y, please know that I see you too. I see you in your wisdom and graciousness holding a good space for me when I need it and I hope you know I am just going to keep doing the work I need to do so that I can show up with even steadier feet and an even more open heart. I hope you know I will always do the same for you when it’s my turn.
Anyway.
I’m sorry I was so off this morning. I thank you for your patience and – though a part of me just knows we are (which is also something that is new to me but I’ll save that freak-out-diatribe for another time, lol) – I hope we are okay…
I really am so grateful for you. May your meeting be brilliant today!!
I love you —
S.
(What are these Imaginary Love Letters? Click Here)
