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and intimacy. you can go this far and no farther, that is my line in the sand. something about that notion always appealed to me, after all, if i kept everyone outside of that magic line, the chances of them wounding me in any way were greatly reduced. feeling safe was much better than feeling loved and it was trade-off i was more than willing too make. after a;ll, relationships are messy and takes all kinds of effort to build healthy ones. a secret or three always gave me an escape pod that could and did rocket me out of emotional entanglements.
thinking about some of my peers and their NEED to have these sorts of relationships, especially when they are merely abstinent, i wonder how they do it. even after days clean, i still hold back. not that i keep any secrets from those with whom i have built intimate relationships, but certainly when a new one comes into my life, i still revert back to the tried and true behaviors of deciding where to draw that line in the sand. exactly how close do i allow them to get and how fast i allow it to happen, are the parameters withing my control and silly me, i still believe from time to time, i have control over who i like and who i do not. the plain and simple fact, as this set of steps has revealed to me, there is no rhyme or reason to the nature of who i do or do not like. there are some who appear to be perfectly likeable, that make me feel slimy every time i interact with them. there are others who have burned me numerous times in the past that i still like. trying to apply any sort of logic or rational thought, always gets me going down a rabbit hole of WTF!
which brings me back to using secrets to maintain that line in the sand. it is quite true, that i keep stuff to myself. learning to trust everyone is not a process that i have completed. i am far too cynical to just let all my stuff be out there in the open for public comment and yet, there are times when that seems to be the only way to go. for me, it seems that the “trust bomb” still seems to be the safest path. maybe some day i will allow myself to take a risk or two when a new relationship pops into my life, i take more risks in this arena than ever before. my NEED to have lots of relationships is still being tempered by the fact that the story i tell myself is that i have to settle for a few deep and abiding ones. even though that story is disproved on a daily basis, it still exists. quite honestly i did not get clean, nor have i stayed around for so long, to settle for anything anymore. sure i can make accommodations, take risks and even allow myself to care for someone whop cannot or will not return that. getting better is my goal, not languishing in the pit of emptiness and loneliness. those changes are part of what i am seeing today, and i can stand tall about how far i have come, without being boastful or arrogant. i am after all, a work in progress and far from recovered in any sense of that word.

∞ DT ∞