Mosaic

Stop taking things from me. That's what I heard over and over.

That's where the pain was coming from. I knew I wasn't in love with him anymore. I knew I had already mourned the life we were going to have together. So why did it still feel so miserable to find out he had moved on so quickly?

I felt so confused all day about my emotions. They reeled back and forth and all around trying to find footing and understanding, but then I finally got in a good cry and felt another piece of me shatter to make way for more growth. I searched the space inside the shards and found the part of me that needed to be heard. The pain wasn't from jealousy or wanting anything with him. The pain was a compounding effect from him and all the other men before him who took what I so freely gave and didn't cherish it, didn't honor it, didn't protect it. They took what they didn't deserve and they took what they didn't earn. That was the pain. I was angry at them all for taking so much and then casting me aside.

But most of all, I was angry at me for letting them. They took from me because I gave it to them.

The shards started out shrieking for them to stop taking things from me but ended with a more profound scream for me to stop giving myself away to them. Stop allowing men who haven't earned my trust to have it. Stop convincing myself they are different than who they show me they are. Stop ignoring my own needs and intuition in favor of people-pleasing and idealizing. Stop melding into another person and allowing them to control so much of who I am.

Start seeing myself as whole and healthy and complete. Start seeing myself as someone who deserves someone like me.

I used to make a mental list of all the good things I'd had in previous relationships and try to make sure I found someone who could bring those things and more to the table. It wasn't difficult for the next guy to top the last one. When the bar is a centimeter high, doubling it doesn't take much effort. I want to choose a new strategy. I want it to have nothing to do with any man, only with myself. I want to be so full and peaceful and whole that anyone who doesn't match that energy will be repelled by me. If I have to walk alone in that space, so be it. If I find someone equal to the space, they will be the luckiest man in the universe. But they will have to meet me there and match me there. I won't be molding them or rescuing them or fixing them or teaching them. I will be busy existing in my own transcendent space and watching only for those who will help me expand that.

One more solid space inside of me shattered to become more than it was before. The mosaic gets more and more beautiful every day.

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