At times I'm surprised by the dreams of youth that find their way back into my waking life. I'm in a moment when the memories of my crushes & loves are flooding in and I feel the need to debate the lessons I learned from them. At the forefront is the man who was my best friend. At the time, I believed the lesson was that its possible to find your soul-mate but there was nothing that said they would feel the same. Looking back, I should have been paying more attention to his kindness, generosity, brilliance, and love in action. Those were the things that I adored about him, that I wanted in myself, and that I should have been looking for in my partners. Had I been paying attention to those things, most of the traumas and drama wouldn't have happened. In my more lucid moments, I can recognize that the men I've allowed into my life and my bed were about denying parts of myself; keeping an outward appearance of what I thought was normal and acceptable. While I know the abuse of my past coupled with untreated mental illness allowed for my denial of self as a teenager, I find it unacceptable to use that excuse now. I've spent over five years in treatment, learning better than I was raised. Its frustrating that I've learned so much and have put so little of it into practice. It feels like I'm stuck in a pattern of allowing insane fears to control my life and then stew in the anger caused by it. The obvious question is, what do I do to confront my fear and change the pattern? While the answer is simple putting it into practice is much more difficult than previously believed. I think I'm learning that while at times a healthy and helpful thing, fear is often a block to the forward motion I want in my life. |