It is just when I think I've locked all the shattered pieces of my heart away that another pops up to stab fresh pain into my soul. A look here, a word there, a small gesture of love that I used to be able to give...or receive. In the end it isn't the big things that hurt the most. It's all the little things, the ways I never knew they had touched my life until they no longer do.
And I don't know where to take my life from here. Up until I met him I didn't really have much of a purpose in my life. I wanted to graduate college and then...I had no plans, no goals, no nothing. And then I met him and suddenly my life had meaning! As I try to cut all the little bits of him out of my heart and lock them away, I wonder what I will be left with. I remember the person I was before I met him, before his love changed me in so many ways. That person is both too far away to reach and too close for comfort. One word defines her, a word familiar to this blog...darkness. And I don't want that again. And so I am reaching out for anchors, for stability, for familiarity, and I find myself reaching to the past far too often. Because those things existed in the past...but the person for whom they existed no longer exists. And I fear, and desire, and fear, that one of those things my searching hand will grasp once more is the blade. Because I remember who I was with a blade in my hand. The blood fed my mask, but yet, who I was inside was broken, and though I am by no means whole, I know that taking up a blade would only build an illusion of strength, and send me back into that darkness farther than before.
I have reached out for old friends, though I know that they were not the best friends for me, as I was not a good friend for them. Can a new relationship be built that is true friendship, that builds us both up? Time will tell. I have reached out for old counsel, though I knew it would be less than useless for me now. Still, sometimes an ear to listen is all that is truly needed. I am reaching forward, too, but in this my lovers' words have more than hit their mark. Lovers' words and old friends' as well. "In a multitude of counselors there is wisdom," the proverb says, and though it is Scripture that does not mean it is false. When people I deeply respect and love, people to whom I have shown the deepest parts of myself, seem to reach the same conclusions, I cannot help but give their words some weight.
And what have their words taught me? That I take and do not give. That I am broken. That I do not really know how to love. That loving me causes them much pain and no joy. That I am selfish. And their actions have taught me that I am unlovable, that I am fit only to be cast aside. I am the damsel in distress the white knight could not rescue and left behind in search of less broken maidens.
And so I'm reaching forward, but I realize I am nothing, I have nothing to give to anyone, friend or lover, that I might find. I would give my heart, but...I know now that that is not remotely enough.