Searching for Love

The more I have to lose… the more I worry. I suppose I’ve always been this way. Of course no one wants to get hurt, loss things that matter or feel let down. But lately I have been really contemplating how bad my rejection sensitivity can be. To the point where I have made up things in my head that have to match my reality for me to realistically ever make a great connection. And as I start to wonder about taking chances in life and really focusing on things I want and how to get there…. Well… the sensitivity comes back in grand force.

I’ve never really been one who thinks my tendency to think of the worst case scenario, expect to constantly be abandoned and have a fear of commitment wasn’t normal. I mean lots of people experience it. I honestly though I had a healthy level of skepticism and it was just part of my unique charm. Until I actually got into therapy, got a depression diagnosis and also spend hours looking for answers. It’s cool to be a nihilist when you’re a teen… when you’re an adult. It becomes hard. I often wonder why my brain can’t seem to choose the hopeful answer by itself. If anything in the last couple years. I have been embarrassed by how confrontational and sad I can be. And it’s a full time job managing those thoughts and feelings. Even when you come to accept them.

But I’m rambling. The point is. I am terrified of one day waking up to having been completely abandoned. I know that I have felt this way before in life. And my own experiences to have some justification of why I fear it. But it is hell. To think that every good thing in your life will end at any time. Feeling completely out of control, and alone. It’s a nightmare that I constantly live in.

The uncertainty I face with it, is on the other hand. I feel ready to invite a different kind of love in my life again. A more romantic one. Having finally gotten somewhere with self-love, and filled with platonic and family love. There is a little romantic teenage girl living in my heart. She’s developed over time. But she still wants romance. But I find myself so uncertain. Lost even, and I am not a newbie when it comes to love and when it comes to being in a romantic relationship. Yet I feel like one somedays. And other days, I feel that its old. That no matter how many times I put myself out there, swing between looking and not caring, to longing and wanting. The whole thought becomes old. And I go back to the safety of my dreams and imagination.

And the thought dawned on me. What if I created the person in my head as a means to keep myself safe. What if I picked a face of someone I found attractive and knew I’d likely never see again, to act as a mirror for ever feature and ideal I could want. Because well I am finding that having boundaries and set points are good. What if I have made it impossible for myself, because every time I decide to be ‘realistic’ the rose colored glasses deceive me and I find myself in pieces and having being used. So of course if I have this long list of things and ideas of who that person could be for me. Then of course any possible love would pale in comparison. Not necessarily because I do not want it but because I want my safety more.

There is a weird kind of freedom in even being able to ask myself that question to. Am I making it hard for myself? And maybe the answer is yes….

But I find myself also firm in my own resolve. Maybe this time I don’t want to be the one to flirt first, to ask first. To take so much care and time. Perhaps I am allowed to want to feel wanted and to be able to sit back and let things come to me. Even if I am a self-proclaimed strong independent woman. Maybe I still dream of being the princess or damsel swept off her feet. And maybe that’s okay to.

It just means that all my uncertainty around the matter has to be okay as well. And it may mean that I have to be okay with the idea that even if it is my brain talking…. That if I never find it, the love I am looking for. That I am still enough.