So, friend, if you ever find yourself in these dark moments – the ones you’re not sure you can navigate through to the other side – please have faith in yourself and, even though you can’t see it yet, the happiness that awaits you.
I sat across from a woman as she told me that she was hard to love. There were a litany of reasons, and she listed them all. She suffered from mood swings, was damaged and easily triggered, has ‘issues’, is crazy, overreacts and over-thinks, and is riddled by insecurities.
The dating power struggle… this is the struggle that occurs when one or the other person within the dating dynamic feels that they have to give up some of their power by doing a ‘major first’. A major first – in essence – is an act that reveals the hand a person holds and exposes a little bit of the ol’ heart, thus making one person in the due vulnerable. These firsts could take the guise of asking someone out, initiating the first kiss, saying the first I love you, or a multitude of things in between.
When I visualize my heart I see it battered and bruised. The evidence of old wounds. There would be signs, also, of my attempt to protect it; an old broken stone wall forgotten, and a battered shield lying to waste.
Friend, first, it is important for me to explain the apology that, I sincerely believe, is a curse is the unnecessary one.
For example, you laugh too loud at a joke that only you seem to get. I’m sorry, you say. You get lost in thought, only to realize that you’re staring at a stranger.
I’m sorry, you say. You get ‘too’ excited about something you’re passionate about. I’m sorry, you say.
Our days are filled with these unnecessary apologies. The ones that suggest that there is some part of you for which you need to apologize.
If words on the page have the ability to transport us to different places, making us suspend our disbelief, then it stands to reason that words coming from the people around us can have even more of an impact, because they come from people who matter to us.
Friend, I am stumped as to why we, as people, are so insecure and cautious around other human beings. We cradle our hearts and our minds, scared to let anyone too close, know too much, or see too far into us. As soon as we start to open up, our instincts tell us to cringe back — preparing to be struck. Afraid of the rejection we could, potentially, suffer.
