Oops, I Did It Again

So I fell for an emotionally unavailable masc. Oops.

Part of me wants to be angry, but I can’t. At least, not at them.

I knew all along, of course. I was reminded several times, actually. I digested it (or so I thought). I was quite happy to be around, as a friend.

It was only ever supposed to be friends.

It’s my fault, really. Or my brain’s, or my parents’. Whoever you want to blame for that insidious part within that is so often called to the out-of-reach, the Unknowables. I’ve always loved dancing. I slipped back and forth, reveled in their warmth, dodged the cold gusts — it felt just like being a little kid. Of course I liked it.

It wasn’t immediate, you know. It wasn’t how I always thought love* would appear. I was used to intoxication. I’m familiar with engulfment, total loss of selfhood. No, this was more akin to crumbling embers. Or perhaps a faintly lit cigarette on forest floor.

Life has a funny little way of hitting the Usher “watch this” when you say you’re done. Yeah I’m a stereotype, blah blah blah, I’ll admit it! I got my heart broken one real time and said “I’m good luv, enjoy.” It’s not because I’m some antisocial type. Quite the opposite actually!

It’s because I already had to move once after I left the stove on and came back to crumbling bricks and frankly, I am not interested in experiencing that again!

But this one? This one snuck up on me.

Oh, how I yearn for something to blame! Please, let it be anything else. I’m so tired of being the cause of my pain. Please. Let something, someone raise their hand so I can point and say “there it is!! The real guilty party. Of course it wasn’t me, God. Why would I partake in cultivating that which I beg you to take away?”

But it doesn’t work like that.

Truth is, it doesn’t really matter what they did. It was never really about them. If it hadn’t been them, it would’ve been someone else. If not that person, then a third after that. I thirst for an arduous love. If I didn’t earn it, how can I deserve it?

I thought this was a letter I’d never send to them, but I think it’s actually just a letter to me.

Self,

I want to tell you not to internalize this, but I know you. You already have. You’re already taking stock of every misstep. Every way in which you could’ve made yourself smaller, easier, more feminine. Mentally taking notes so one day, you can finally “win”.

At the end of the day, that’s what it’s about, isn’t it? You needed to “win” someone’s love. Only winners get to be loved. Isn’t love you had to bleed for so much sweeter?

After all, you’re the same daughter with a mother that barely tolerates you. If that person could give you life and then spend the next 2 decades years resenting you for it, how could anyone else feel differently?

I know you’re comparing this situation to all the others. I know you’re genuinely confused because this seemed different. And it was, in a lot of ways. They do care about you. You’re getting better. But they still share that one, critical trait.

They will not - no, they cannot love you.

They have to be unable to love you, just like your mother. You need it this way so that when you finally succeed, when finally you prove you are good enough, you can smile with triumph and proclaim “see, mom? You were wrong about me!!”

I know every time you fail it brings you back to childhood. Hazy afternoons coasting along the edge of memory, stuffed with blueprints of your being. At the top of the page you wrote “which parts of myself can I keep” vs “which parts I can spare”. You were all of 7 years old, but you were certain. Somewhere along the way, as flesh and sinew stitched together, a critical error was made. You were intolerable.

You claim to despise that feeling.

But let’s be totally honest. Can you truly say you hate the very thing you always chase?

Want to know what I think?

I think you’re addicted to feeling wounded. You’ve gotten used to donning your scars like medals. It’s been too long, you can’t forsake your life’s work. If you accepted an easy love, that would mean you are able to be loved. If you are lovable, then that would mean you are not your mother’s reckoning.

And if you are not the unlovable child, then you were bore from a loveless mother, into a loveless world.

It feels easier to think that I could have been better than to know I couldn’t change a thing.

But! I know you don’t really want to dwell on that thought. I won’t force you to. Can’t be crying before a work shift, lol!

I just hope you know that it’s not going anywhere. That black hole within feeds on repeated patterns.

*Love is being used throughout this article to represent potential. It is not used in the literal sense of being IN love.