Romantic realizations can happen anywhere. They've happened to me on the bus, on the street. The last one was after the movies today, after Pirates of the Caribbean.
Once upon a time, someone told me that I had already found my one true love and lost him. There is one teeny tiny problem: I've been in love with the wrong kind of love.
Me explico para los que no me entiendan.
Before, I used to believe that I should give myself completely and without any holds barred to the other person, be it my lover or a member of my family. It was always saying yes to everything, without thinking about myself in the first place but rather thinking about what would go wrong if I didn't do X or Y or whatever letter. Thinking that I was worthy of love if and only if I was useful, not because I was loved per se. I was held back, but never contained in love or in the hugs I was supposed to get if I really needed them.
With love came guilt, so in time I decided that what I once thought was love, turned out to be more of a complicated manipulation, tug and pull between the sense of guilt and the sense of being useful and needed and wanted. But not loved. Never loved. I made peace with that and sometimes I still get angry and still have a right temper that boils to the surface because I regret not feeling loved and it pains me. But I can't cry anymore over what happened in my childhood and growing up and I can't make amends with the past in the sense that all will be forgotten and become happy: we live through our dysfunctions until we man up to them, and they stay with us but they can't do no harm. What I can do is comfort the scared, shy and lost little girl I was because I still am her in my own way, and carry her to port, and then move on.
When I started to have romantic partners, another idea of love came to play but it was really the same one I always had, save for one difference. Before, I always gave myself up so much that there was no boundaries between me and the other person: there was no space between where we could make room for being needed and wanted and everything else but just became so incredibly dependent that when I decided to leave that negative influence and look for a moment of my own, I was denied it. I wasn't loved, I was
needed; it's not the same and it never will be.
Here, it was the same shitty circle, but the only addition here was that I was having sex with the other person. And it was almost always a disaster (but we've already spoken about that). Whenever there was another in my life, I gave. And I never stopped giving the other person as much as I could, because I was scared that if I didn't I would lose him or worse (gasp!), that I would not be worthy of the other persons' love or affection or whatever. I let myself be treated like a rag by men who were abusive in a low extent but abusive nonetheless.
I let myself be controlled by men who needed a mother in their lives and who were unable to assume a responsibility with handling my scared heart. Or men who wanted me for a while, and then decided that I wasn't really their cup of tea. Hey, I had fun. Most of the time. But there comes a time when a piece of meat decides she wants to be more than just that. (I still could. I just don't have the time for it)
These days I've turned to online meeting people and trying to date. And yes, failing miserably while learning a ton about what I want and need and what I can just shoo from my existence. Every time one of these guys fades into the ether of the ethernets I feel bad, a little inadequate and just angry. Why? Because I try and console myself saying that "If only I had been in the right place at the right time" and so on and so forth, or saying that he was a loser who didn't deserve me and that I'm better off alone. I know now I'm lying to myself.
I know I try too hard to keep someone interested in me or at least in the idea of me, when there is something called the real world that can offer a TON more that what a good picture can convey. I want to meet people, and I want to stop feeling alone (even if I'm always my favourite person), but I've forgotten how. The great thing about online dating is that love is just a click away, and so is forgetting and moving on. I love to daydream, but I'm too old for dreams that don't lead me to having a smile on my face for the rest of the day. I can allow myself to be sad, and be angry and be fucked up, but I can't let that deter my existence. Besides, those people were put in my life for a reason. Who knows when I'll be needing unlikely contacts from my phonebook?
One thing I do want to say to that person who said I had only one love in my life, and that I lost it so long ago:
I haven't lost that love because I haven't found it in the first place. I'm still searching.
