I Bruise Easily

I’ve always bruised easily.  Combine this with the fact that I am one of the clumsiest individuals on the planet and I am constantly bumping into things unwittingly, it’s not uncommon for me to have random black and blue marks on my legs or arms. 

It occurred to me this weekend as I was contemplating one such random mark that I don’t just bruise easily physically — I also bruise easily emotionally.  And just as with the physical bruises, I find them difficult to avoid, but they take a lot longer to heal. 

I had a heart-to-heart with my best childhood friend M. a couple of weeks ago, and she told me that she was concerned about me and some of the things I’d been blogging about, like the situation with C.  She basically told me that she was worried I wasn’t loving myself enough and I was ending up with a series of guys who didn’t love or respect me either.  She suggested, in the kindest and most constructive and loving way possible, that I had some things to work through and that perhaps I should seek therapy.  (She said it in a much more comprehensive and thoughtful way than that, but I’m summarizing.)

Of course, I pushed back.  I knew what she was saying was coming from a good place, but I reassured her that I was happy and that my life was good.  I told her that she shouldn’t worry about me, because things aren’t always as dramatic as they sound in my blog, and that my blog is cathartic and in a way it is my therapy.  I told her that I had learned my lesson from the C. situation and was looking out for myself and yada yada yada.

Methinks the lady doth protest too much, right?

The truth is, as much as I’d like for all the things I told M. to be true, and as much as I believed them when I was saying them, there is a lot of wisdom in everything that M. told me.  And the more that I try to say that everything is all sunshine and kittens and roses, the more I become like the proverbial ostrich with its head in the sand, ignoring all my own issues as they just snowball.  It’s just so hard to admit that there are things I need to deal with, that I can’t blame on this guy or that bad day, because that means that I would actually have to look inside myself and make some real changes.  And frankly, that scares the shit out of me.

As you know, dear readers, in my dating life, as in all areas of my life, I tend to go into things with my heart wide open.  I’m trusting.  I wear my heart on my sleeve.  I give guys the benefit of the doubt, probably way past the point where they actually deserve it.  When I meet someone who I like, someone who I click with, I don’t follow any of those age-old dating rules.  Usually this backfires.  Every time I think, this one is different.  Every time I’m wrong.

It disappoints me every time that I open my heart to someone and they pull away from me.  It disappoints me most when I felt I actually had reason to trust the person in question.  But these days, the person I’m most disappointed in is myself.  Because I know I need to love myself more and look out for myself more.  No one else is going to do it for me — at least not until I do.