Most people will never believe this about me, but I am shyer than I appear. I’m scared of people and while I understand that I am a public speaker, I have social anxiety and stage fright that often causes me to vomit before I do my presentations.
And, too, I am much more submissive than I ever wanted to be. However, it has been years. Through the experiences of my past or my efforts to improve as a person, when it came to the moments when enough was enough, or when the discomfort of my surrounding was too great, I had to find whatever it was within me to respond or stand up. When I found this, I had to allow myself to be heard, and heard clearly.
This took more than I can explain. This took bravery. This took my ability to say my peace, or to not say anything at all, and simply turn around, and walk away without turning back to see if I was noticed or if I was going to be begged to come back.
I can think of different moments where I stood quiet when meanwhile, I wished I had said something.
I could have said anything, or I could have said “stop” because the momentum of life was moving too fast, and the situations were ahead of me and growing out of my reach or out of control.
I know all about the occasions when I left too many things to be unsaid. I know all about the post conversations that took place in my head, which is where I try and re-litigate the past, or at least change how I feel about it.
I can say that I can look back at moments when I wished I had said something or did something different; and yes, there are times when I allowed my silence to destroy my best ability to change my direction or, at minimum, I can see where my silence or disdain, or how the aftermath of my pride and ego betrayed me. As a result, I allowed the windows of opportunity to close or change, or disappear like the expelled vapor of someone’s last and final breath.
Silence . . .
it’s a real bitch sometimes.
Nothing hurts quite like the unsaid words from the heart.
I can think about the times when I was out with a group of people. I can think about the lonesome associations with crowded rooms and while sitting amongst company or people who I would either regard as family or friends, I can recall moments when I saw myself as a stranger.
I remember how my silent submission and unspoken resentment was enough to build an inward rage. I say inward because I knew who these people were to me.
I knew everything about them, at least from a social perspective. Still, there are people who I can say that I knew well and intimately so; but, as much as I knew them, I never knew why I stayed around or returned their calls or called them in the first place, especially when I allowed me to see myself as inferior around them. Yet, for some reason, I looked for their acceptance or their attention and like a beaten dog just looking to be loved or stroked, I accepted an exchange of treatment that was nothing better than cruel.
I am a fan of the following saying:
When people show you who they are . . . Believe them.
I know this, yet there are times when I forget this. I look for and seek their attention or their affection and, simply put, I am not a beaten dog (anymore).
I suppose there has always been a part of me who is afraid to speak my mind because what if I do? What if I say what I think?
What if I show my weak side or my sweet side?
What if I tell someone the truth about me and then I find myself alone or, essentially, I find that once I am known (or exposed) then I am essentially rejected, or this pushes them off, and then what?
What do I do then?
What if I show my true colors or expose my weakness and allow myself to be humble and vulnerable — then what?
I never dared to show any of these things to anybody.
Never complain. Never explain.
Just go. Just take the pain.
Just live. Just get up and walk away.
However the word “just” is intended to simplify the action, but sometimes the word “just” is a word that “just” doesn’t apply because life isn’t always “just” that simple.
If it was, it would be easy to “just” forget.
But to forget the pain, we need something to replace the pain, like, for example, the feeling of joy which overwhelms the senses and distills the impurities of our previous deceptions.
Better yet, I always assumed that one should just endure and take the pain, and stuff it down deep, and I mean this, as in stuff this down really deep, because this is what it means to be a man, or so I thought.
Hide this. Keep it out of sight and stuff it down, nice and deep; as in deep down in the dungeon of my soul, and keep it there, locked away, and hide this like a terrible cancer that rots at our core from the inside out. Keep this safe, never to be heard from again.
We have to do this or else someone might see the vulnerability of my weakness and take notes about my fragile truths. Then almost effortlessly and with a smile, they can take me down, at will, and ruin me down to my core.
These are the sum of my fears—which are to be exposed, or to be rejected and weak, or to be seen as undesirable and wasted, as if to be worthless and unwanted. Should I ever be wanted or desired and to be seen as cool, then if I were to be exposed, then I would only be wanted by the unworthy themselves. Thus, I could only be a member of a club that I would otherwise have nothing else to do with.
No . . .
This is not the life for me.
I admit that I have dared to reveal myself. I’ve only done this on a wholehearted level on rare moments and on a short list of a few occasions with very few people in mind; I have allowed myself to pull the curtain or to drop the mask and then, in a moment of intimate silence, or perhaps due to a need to lay down my sword and rest my shield and to rest my other measures of mass and self-destruction; there have been the so-called few and infrequent moments when I removed my guard, and I shared the details of my deepest self.
Sure, I slow danced.
But to what avail?
I have learned that there are times when this is okay and there are people who are safe. Adversely, I have learned that it is easy to mistake people, or the validity or the goodness of their intentions.
I used to stay quiet because I was afraid of being alone.
To be clear, there are others who say what I am about to tell you, which is why I am not claiming this statement as my own; however, I am saying this in unison and in relation to others who share this very same theory.
It is not bad to be or feel alone. However, it’s worse to be with someone or to be around people who make you feel totally or completely alone in ways that are worse than being alone itself.
Not everyone is an enemy nor is everyone a friend. Not everyone is a hero nor is everyone a villain. No, I understand this. Sometimes, life changes.
And sometimes, friends are no longer friends and lovers will no longer love us.
This is a sad but realistic truth.
I used to fear this—to be alone, I mean. I used to fear being alone or to be left out, or to be unincluded or uninvited.
I used to think this was a measure of my worth; however, the true measure of a person’s value is to know their worth and to know when their value is not being honored. Hence, there is nothing as heroic as the value it takes to honor oneself and to walk away, no matter how hard this is or how much it hurts.
I have never been a person who handled love or intimate relationships well. And yes, I have shared too much with the wrong people and not enough with the right ones.
I have always found myself to be emotionally distant or at arm’s length because I was afraid to be too close or to allow my hopes to be high.
I never knew if love was real or as everlasting as I dreamed or wished it would be.
I was always afraid that sooner or later, I would lose this feeling of warmth or the lightness in my heart would disappear and later become burdensome or off weighted, and too heavy for someone else,. Hence, I would be alone (again) and wondering why my love was unreturned.
This is as honest as can be. . .
this is always the past destruction of my relationships and the reasons for the self-fulfilled prophecies, which failed them from the start.
I never dared to show myself because—well, it’s the same as my fear of intimately dancing, as in slow dancing in the dark and opening myself up to the vulnerable heights of modest humility.
I was always worried about the “What now,” questions like
Now she knows everything about me.
What now?
Will she love me back, or laugh, or find my unattractive and leave me?
She could hurt me.
So . . .
What now?
I can look like a fool, or maybe I’ll be the punchline to the next joke; only, everyone will laugh, and I’ll be the last to find out why.
This is another of my deepest fears—to think that I am being loved when meanwhile, I am merely just another joke and, of course, I’m the last to get it.
Therefore, I submit that love is not an easy thing. In its path and along the course of our life, love can come and go. Love can hurt, and love can destroy and break our heart, or cut our fingertips, like when we touch the glass across the tops of our shattered mental mirrors. As this shatters, we lose our truth to the distortion of our new and inaccurate reflection.
I remember when I was young.
I remember liking a girl. I remember practicing what I would say if the chance arrived. I would rehearse this—perhaps in the mirror or maybe I’d practice this in my head. Only, something would always happen or my words never came out like I rehearsed.
Maybe I was drinking, or high, and I was out of my head, to which I always wished I just said, “I’m sorry. I’m out of my heard right now.”
But rather than submit any further, I would try to compensate—but again, I was out of my head and out of my mind. Furthermore, my words and my intentions gave way to the dulled shine of a shy or inferior concept that I was somehow less-than or otherwise unworthy.
I never told people things like this—and why would I?
Why would I want anyone to know that I am broken and imperfect?
I never told people about my truths or my mistakes.
I definitely never said anything about my intentional accidents which are more like the times when I submitted myself to self-induced crimes.
This is when I painted myself in a corner, and then I’d react, either hastily or crazily—but then again, I was out of my head. Understand?
Meanwhile, all I wanted was to be valid. All I wanted was to be loved back and all I wanted was for this feeling, like when two people make love in the dark—or better, all I wanted was for this circled connection to be concurrent, and ongoing, like infinite circle of water, and unstoppable, or unending.
Is that so wrong?
Is it so crazy to want this?
Is it insane to want to be loved in such an immeasurable way, both unconditionally and conditional? Is it wrong to want to find someone or something which is always self-propelling, like a gasless engine that needs nothing to spark or to ignite the flame because, of course, this is more than cosmic, and this is more than wild because, if anything, this is not of this Earth. Therefore, a love like this is boundless or bottomless, or openly ongoing—and to get to my question, to be this endless, like the universe itself, is not something that comes without effort, but what has to happen to make this so?
This takes time and effort and healing and patience.
But in the face of this life and for the command of a love to reach this level—what if I put in the work, or what if I give all I have and what if I expose every piece of me, from my true naked self to the exposed cracks in my façade, or even when it comes to my physical features or my insecurities, to which I am either ashamed of or uncomfortable with—what happens if I give myself completely or expose myself and love with everything I have, only to find that my love is not enough. What do I do when my love comes back to me, unreturned or unwanted?
I have never dared, so truly, or given myself so openly. Except for here, of course, because it is safe here. It is safe to speak here, openly, because I am the author and the controller of who comes and who stays.
It is fine for me to talk about this now, or to think about taking the risk because it’s just talk.
It is safe to consider allowing myself to dance slowly, as in cheek to cheek, and to feel the bitter sweetness of love, or to dance and not worry about my reaction to the song, or to fear whether my truth and emotions are being judged.
I don’t have to be afraid here or worry if I am seen as “less-then” or part man, and part worthless.
I will dare this to the end and explain that yes, I know what betrayal feels like.
I know what happens when I share too much of myself with someone who does not want me, fully, or with someone who has their own agenda — and I do know what rejection feels like. All too well.
I know about the humiliation of being the fool or lied to, or worse, I understand what it’s like to be called another man’s name in a moment of sexual intimacy and to never forget the humiliation which came after.
So?
What now?
My love is nothing that can be killed or drawn and quartered.
My love cannot and will not be silenced, and no, my love will never submit or fail nor will the broken pieces of my mental mirror prevent me from learning about the beauty of my true reflection.
Do I love?
Yes.
Can I love completely?
Of course, I can.
I will never allow myself to submit again, or quit, or go on unspoken or leave the important things unsaid. Nor will I ever allow my love to be ruled or restricted by fear—and in the case of whether I should turn left or right next time—my love is not incapable of mistakes nor can my love see or tell the future. But I can tell you this and swear by it –
I will follow my heart next time.
You can believe that,
my heart cannot quit.
And neither can I.
However, I will no longer allow myself to be silent or still or loveless and alone, which is not to say that I will share me or myself and my love, just to share it or just to find something warm during a cold moment.
No.
I will not settle. I will not bargain, and I will never allow myself to think or feel as if I am being disloyal to myself or to my heart.
I have seen what happens when this takes place.
People lie. . .
People cheat. . .
And people steal which, of course, it pays to understand that there is no theft of service worse than the thefts of the heart. However, I have to realize that the day someone steals my right and my ability to love—then I have allowed myself to be stolen by a theft, which is worse than death. And I truly believe this.
But not again.
Not now. Not ever.
I know there’s love out there for me.
Real love. True as they come
and she . . .
she is watching right now.
Looking and waiting . . .
For me.
The Written Addiction 