still fighting it
But I'm not fooled! I know it's cold as balls. Huevos.
I failed my Spanish proficiency exam. Big surprise. Ben Folds is my music, as I audit a 2nd year Spanish course to refresh myself.
Years of being alone - trying to figure it (me) out, trying to heal from childhood and hurt - taught me how to protect myself. First step of protection: admit no one understands you. Second step of protection: identify yourself as someone who will never be understood.read as: freak. It worked in a way. It worked to the extent that it guarded me. I stopped expecting people to read me right, and so I then therefore stopped getting totally crushed when they didn't read me right.
The downside? As a result of no longer expecting people to read me right, I began to ONLY expect people to read me wrong. Then, any mistaken perception of my intentions was just chalked up as, "see, I knew it; I'm just a freak."
That's why people would just stop talking to me, right? Like in third grade when I walked up to my group of friends at recess one day and one girl, Renee, looked at me and said, "I don't even know how to pronounce your name..." as if that explained how she couldn't possibly be expected to include me. I still don't know why they all banded against me that day.
The same thing happened the year before in the second grade, too.
We've all read the data on guys who've just STOPPED TALKING to me one day out of the bllue.
since no one will completely understand me, then no one will definitely stay with me. This was the defense mechanism I created. This was the truth I survived by. If I could accept I'm a freak then I could accept why people would leave me.
One of the things I've loved so much about God is that I have faith that I could never accidentally make Him stop loving me. I can never accidentally go to hell. I will never accidentally ruin my life.
But I never thought to blame other people for their personal problems that might cause them to walk out. I never thought to consider things "their loss." My other mistake was that I ceased to see these instances when I wasn't understood as being fleeting. Something I could - we could - go back and make clear. Instead it became,
"I was misunderstood and that's the end of it. I guess they'll be leaving soon now. God, I'm a freak."
Oh, poor pitiful me, you know?
Habits are hard to break. Habits of thought. Especially the habits of thought that were especially designed to keep me safe and secure. They are hard to break when they are replaced with vulnerability. Growing up and falling in love sometimes wallups me up the side of my head with a reverberating sting of biting tin-foil and being beaten with an aluminum bat. Vibrating skull + grating nails.
But I owe it to Mike to keep growing.
