Fully Alive…Ready to Smile

posted by erin on Jun 11

I think I am a sucker for punishment. I mean, why? Why do I keep going back for more. Shut me down and watch me get back up and offer my heart to you on a platter so that you can stomp all over it again. “Here, would you like me to hold it down for you so you can get better aim? Just watch my fingers please.” Really. Is it my infallible belief in human goodness? Is it that I’m forever the optimist? Whatever doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger, right? Right. I think. Or maybe I’m insane. “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results” Albert Einstein

There are times when I get that feeling in my gut that it really is not going to be a happy ending, but I push on thinking I am just overreacting, that it will all be okay. How many times will I be vulnerable to the point of excess? The answer, my friends, is probably forever. It’s in my nature. I will forever be open, I will wear my heart on my sleeve. I will always hold onto the hope that what I give will be reciprocated.

I will say sorry, I will forgive, I will love, I will continue to think the best. I don’t give up on someone that easy. I’m a fighter. What hurts is when someone gives up on you. When they don’t think you are worth the fight. When what you have given has been evaluated and found wanting. When you realize the time has come to stop fighting and chasing. When you must stand still and let it be..,feeling like you have failed. That maybe at some point you let a moment pass by that perhaps could have changed it. Something could have been said to make the outcome different. The unfortunate thing about hindsight is that even though events appear clear from the finish line, you can’t turn back time and do it over. And that frustrates me.

I keep telling myself I won’t let it happen again, but in truth, I know I will. To harden myself so much that I can’t be hurt is to be emotionally dead and not have relationship at all. It is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. I want to live my life feeling to the fullest. And if it means that in the process I will lose pieces of my heart, then know that you have been given a gift.

_{Edited to add: for all of you worrying, this is not anything to with my husband…just thinking out loud about past experiences.  Sorry to alarm anyone!}