.:: falling apart and coming back together ::.

Have you ever noticed how seldom things work out how you picture them in your mind? If you'd asked me a few years ago, maybe when I was 18 or so, what I'd be doing at 23, I might have said that I would be married by now.

Ha.

I might have even thought I'd be more mature than I am. I'm starting to embrace the fact that virtually nothing that I had predicted has come to pass. Things haven't turned out like I planned, and thank goodness for that. It's like one of those "choose your adventure" books where you make a decision that takes you down an entirely different rabbit hole than whatever other options you have. Except with those books, you can always go back and have ALL the adventures. Life is not so. With every decision I make, doors shut behind me and I close chapters of my life that I can never revisit. It makes me sad, but I am so entranced by the possibilities coming at me each day that I can't help but enjoy the journey.

I suppose the one thing that really bothers me is when I lose people. There are several people who I have been very close to and now, for whatever reason, cannot even talk to anymore. I think most of them are men. I don't just mean that I can't talk to them because we grew up and moved away. I am talking about people who I have shared my heart with...people who have meant more to me than I did to myself at the time...and they are completely lost to me. It hurts so much to think that I will spend the rest of my life wishing I could have just one last conversation. It kills me to think that it won't be until the afterlife that I am allowed to be in contact with them. Maybe I'm getting too personal with this, but it's been on my mind lately.

Isn't it strange that the people that mean the most to you — the ones you really let into your soul — are the ones you are at the greatest risk for losing? There are people I would storm the gates of hell for, but for whatever reason, a phone call is impossible. I don't get to hear them say they love me ever again. I don't get to hear about their day. I don't get to ask them for advice or know that they care about me. Because the truth is, they probably don't.

It makes me feel very expendable, and I don't like to feel like that.

Sometimes I convince myself that I am the poison in my own apple. Maybe it is me that so unloveable that even when someone loves me, they eventually become overwhelmed. Perhaps it is my opinions. Perhaps it is me pushing these people away. I hate that. I never wanted to push anyone away. Maybe I loved them too much.

I remember realizing for the first time that my father was human and that he was very much not the man that I needed him to be. He let me down so much. He shut me out. He ignored me when I tried to talk to him. He didn't say that he loved me back. He let me leave the room without coming after me. He didn't return my embrace. Most of the time, I just imagine that he isn't even there anymore so it will stop hurting. But it won't ever stop hurting. I don't have a father, and I never will. I have to do this on my own. The point is that I think I am repeating my hurt from my father in other relationships. I expect you to eventually leave me, so I save you the trouble and walk away first. It makes things easier, and it keeps you from feeling guilty. You can just blame me. That way, I take all the hurt, pain, sorrow, bitterness and guilt upon myself and you can just explain me away as that messed up girl who had too many problems to even try to deal with.

That's how much I love you.