How I Fell In Love

After all the toxic relationships that I have experienced I still managed to find the man of my dreams and fall in love. A near impossible task I had once thought. For a long time it seemed that I would run away from every serious relationship that presented itself. The key I think... was one man's patience.

I had a five year long terrible and abusive relationship with an A-class narcissist. Controlling, possessive, and always demeaning.  Verbally and emotionally abusive, never physical, but I was always afraid that day would come. It took everything I had to walk away. I had absolutely nothing. It was an incredible struggle to start over. Even now it is hard to look back on just how desolate my life had become. Yet, at the same time, I was free. Being cold and hungry was so much better than being abused.

Venturing out single again was terrifying. My self esteem, my confidence, my true sense of self was completely forgotten. I did manage to round up a date here or there. Turns out I was better looking and more of a catch than I had been lead to believe. Slowly but surely I regained some self esteem, but still always struggled with trusting someone.

I had some hard theories about men and relationships in those days. They made great friends but dating seemed to be the beginning of the end. The same year as my break up, I made such a friend. But unlike all the others, the friendship was constant. For a very long time (about five years long) it stayed just that. A friendship. Over time he became my very best friend. The one person in the world I could count on for anything. Knowing I was in love? Well everyone knew that that we were in love,  but us.

I remember ending yet another too short romance, I had become a serial dater. My BFF still in the dating game himself, I had come to a point when the thought of something long term didn't really scare me anymore. I had to consider, what or who I was even looking for. I had a distinct exterior in mind. But what I wanted from someone I couldn't even begin to describe. I just knew what I didn't want. Any sense I had that someone was trying to control me was out like the trash. Kicked to the curb. Then I had a thought. I realized that no guy in his right mind would be okay with me having a guy for a best friend. That wouldn't be controlling just good sense. Then I thought, well I definitely knew that no woman would be okay with my BFF having me for a best friend either.

I realized to even consider having long time relationship would mean sacrificing the best relationship I ever had.... wait a sec.... and then I knew. I was in love. I would rather be single forever and keep my BFF then be with anyone else. No wonder no one ever struck me as "the one". He had been right at my side all along. Five long years of building our friendship day after day until finally there was none other to even consider.

My only fearful thought, was not knowing if he felt the same way. But looking back it was quite clear that it was we, not just I, that was in love. So how does one profess their true feelings?

His birthday was coming in a few months and I wanted to give him a gift that would surely reveal my feelings for him. I had always wanted to play the guitar so I took up guitar lessons and began to learn his favorite song. When his birthday came I told he would have to wait for his gift a little longer. Over my birthday and the forth of July we had a trip planned with friends to a small town in the woods with a big lake that congregates everyone between 21 and 30 within a 200 miles radius.

We watched fireworks off the dock and ventured back to the cabin we were staying in. It was probably around 2 AM I gave him my birthday cigar and told him to go light it up out on the deck. I came out with our friend's guitar and told him I was ready to give him his birthday present. So there we were on a warm July night, alone, under the stars in the woods, I played "landslide" on the guitar for him.

We were pretty much together from that day forward. By the following year we bought a house and got married. Seems reckless to get hitched after such a short dating period, especially after all I had been through. But I knew him, inside and out. In five years, he was constant never wavering from who he was. Five years of marriage later, he is still the guy I sat on that deck with.

Hoping you all have a wonderful Valentine's today, and if you are not dating, or seeing, or courting someone.... I suggest you spend it with your best friend.

Why We Cannot Change Anyone

I wrote this poem from a memory I had as a child. There really was a dove I found with a broken wing. I picked it up and brought it inside, put a towel in a small box to give it a place to lay, but that was the extent of all I could do for it. Soon after the dove died.

I look back on this moment and think of our innate desire to fix people and help them to change, all coming from a place of wanting them to be happy, safe, and well. We are so limited in our ability to do this. At the end of the day, sometimes someone who is broken is just that... broken. There isn't anything that we can really say or do that will make them any better, any happier.

I don't actually believe that anyone really can change, though some may disagree. I do believe that emotionally stable and well people can grow, but ultimately we are inherently who we are. When it comes to toxic relationships I have a contradictory thought. One I have considered greatly this week, I think I have had an ah-ha moment.

In most toxic relationships, we are dealing with a personality disorder. In my research of borderline personality disorder I once read something that really stuck. That someone with this disorder cannot actually process consequence. Makes sense since one cannot experience consequence if they do not find themselves to blame for anything. If you cannot self reflect and see your own wrongdoings, if you have no regret, then you cannot hold yourself accountable for your actions and cannot see or process the consequence of those actions... therefore, no personal growth, you will not change.

This is the very reason that one cannot change another. I think of the saying "you can lead a horse to water, but cannot make him drink" You can plead your case to your relationship counterpart, express how their actions have affected you, but unless they really want to see it, they won't.

I think back to my teen years, when I would get into disagreements with my mother, who had just taken up therapy, when I would tell her how her actions or words made me feel she would say "I cannot make you feel anything." Basically saying that regardless of how she behaves or what she says to me I am responsible for my own feelings. I realize that her therapist may have been trying to empower her, I don't think he realized that empowerment was not something that she lacked. Empathy on the other hand....

I cannot completely disagree with this statement. It reminds me of the quote "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent" said by Eleanor Roosevelt. So there in lies the contradiction, if someone says or does something that hurts you are you responsible for that pain because it is your own, or are they responsible for their words and actions that hurt you?

I choose to believe both. When someone says or does something that hurts you, you then are responsible for how you respond. Do you endure? in silence or do you express your feelings? Or do you walk away? How you respond is the consequence one has to live with. Whether they take it as such is up to them. Now that, we have no control over.

Perhaps we are the ones who should take flight, before we ourselves are the broken ones.