Comfort

This one is for you. Yes, you Patrick. Let there be no misunderstanding this time. I haven't forgotten about you, my long-lost companion. I saw an old friend last weekend. He used to throw these little tantrums about not being able to be with me, and insist that we couldn't hang out for awhile. He's over it now. Given time, you will be too, I'm sure. This is you throwing a little tantrum about something you can't have. But soon enough, you'll forget why you even wanted me. Nonetheless, I miss you in my life and I wish once again that love and sex and attraction could butt out of my relationships and let me just be with the people I care about most.

Here's how I've been feeling lately: defeated. I've gotten so run down by life that I recently lost the ability to see the joy and sweetness in my existence. Last week, I had a total breakdown. I cried, I crawled under my covers, I hid from the world. While under my sea of green bedsheets, I made a startling revelation. I thought: this is the point I would normally call Patrick. This was hard for me to accept. But it helped me understand something important: I'm still holding on to you for reasons I don't fully accept. As much as you frustrate and irritate me when you call me in an emotional tailspin, I also still rely on you to lift my spirits from time to time. You are my emotional bedrock. While I may have built up a solid foundation of self-confidence- even peace and happiness- in other areas of my life, I still come to you for comfort.

Is this fair? Is this healthy? Well, I know that it allowed me to appear very well-adjusted and level in my current love affair. It allowed me to divorce my emotions from my interactions with him, because whenever I felt a bit crazed, or sad, or scared, or at all vulnerable, I simply called you. This wasn't fair to anyone involved, including me. You got all the broken-down parts of me, he got all the strong, secure parts, and I got a weird, divided psyche and a total lack of self-possession. I know that it undoubtedly created a road-block for my own self-awareness. I know that it prevented me from really cultivating any kind of self-comforting techniques. So, no I suppose my continued attachment to you was not fair or healthy.

I also think it was unfair because it obviously created a feeling of closeness, of love and compassion, between us that went beyond the usual bonds of friendship. It's clear that I still feel most comfortable with you above all others in the world, and I AM scared to let go. I AM scared to reveal my vulnerabilities to another, even my close friends. For this, I'm sorry. Both because you were right in calling me out on my fear, and because I see that I was leading you on, in a way that wasn't healthy for either of us.

The truth is that I really don't want a conventional-type relationship anymore, but letting go of the comfort I found with you, in our traditional relationship, has been incredibly difficult for me. In this new space, this new version of love, that I have been crafting since our split, there is definitely less room for vulnerability and weakness. There is less space to find comfort in a lover. There is less tolerance for moments of self-pity. I am forcing myself to become more self-sufficient, more capable of supporting myself in times of weakness, more adept at managing the darkness within me alone. But this is not an easy path, and I can't help but miss the moments when I turned to you and felt the burden of my pain lighten a little. No one has ever made me feel more loved, more peaceful and safe, in my whole life. But I recognize now that by relying so heavily on you to provide a safe haven for my battered self, a reprieve from my pain, I actually handicapped myself. Losing you meant losing my haven, and I suspect you feel something similar. Perhaps this is the main reason that our bond has lingered well past the expiration of our relationship: we are both feeling the absence of comfort in our lives more acutely than we should. If we were truly healthy, we would have maintained that comfort within ourselves.

That is what I am striving toward now: self-love, self-awareness, and now self-comfort. What a journey I have undertaken! How many holes I realize need filling. How many cracks in my foundation of self that our relationship (and others) held up precariously for a time. But I am not scared of commitment. In fact, I am more committed to this journey of self discovery than I feel I have ever been to any relationship in my life. It is just that love has taken a different form in my life now, and I'm still trying to adjust my understanding to these new contours. And I am still tethered, here and there, to those holds that gave me peace and comfort before. From this point on, I will work ardently to release this form of attachment to you, so that we can both climb free toward an independent, joyful life.

I look forward to talking to you again.