“You always knew that one day you would stand up for yourself…That one day you would raise the standard of your life….That one day you would say to yourself “Enough with this bullshit”…You might as well make today that day.   ~  Steve Maraboli

I said enough with this bullshit over 8 months ago in one area of my life and then on December 15th I said it again.   I know that in both cases I made the right choice.  So why do I struggle now?  I am struggling with an issue that has been with me since I was a young woman.  I think I have figured something about about myself that I never saw before.  I do not do well in captivity.  I am my brightest and most brilliant when I am not with someone.  As soon as I am with someone I quickly set about doing everything to make them happy and in the process I lose myself.  I lose the dancing queen who loves to dress in costumes.  I lose the ability to go onto the dance floor and dance till I am spent and then leave like a bat in the night…alone.  I lose the ability to just be spontaneous because I am afraid that the person I am with will not approve.   I pull away from my friends and I don’t trust other women so I keep away from them.  I try to protect what I see as mine.  I worry about losing them and in doing that I lose myself and eventually what attracted them to me is just gone.   I know where the roots are for this issue and they are from very long ago.  Love hunger is a terrible thing and when you finally feel you have it holding onto it becomes your main focus.  This is a major revelation for me.   I have caught glimpses of this issue before but never so clearly as I see it now.

I am stuck at the moment.  I need to do some serious thinking.  Do I resign myself to being without a partner for the rest of my life?  I think there must be a way to have balance.  I think I can have a lover or lovers who value me and who I could feel comfortable with as long as they never live with me or we don’t get too comfortable.  I have had self harm thoughts lately because I was punishing myself for the failure of my most recent relationship.   I cared for him deeply, so much that I was numbing myself to keep from feeling the pain it was causing me.  It is hard to care for someone who does not care as much about you.  So one day I did have to say enough of this bullshit and I stood up for myself knowing I would lose him.  I had to do it or die.  Though I am still puzzling over why I still feel like dying sometimes.  It is a process…I will just keep working at it.