In the last week, in the midst of trying to find out what demisexuality really means, I found myself engaged in the strangest conversation. I discovered ties between a new friend and many old friends. People we've come across, who looks like what and who did what music thing and which persons might have been serial gropers. At the end of
it? I felt the wind kicked out of me.
I felt like everything I knew, everything
I make excuses for and file away just melt and show how afraid I am.
I realised I'd created these dream people. Images informed by my perspective - a sole and solidarity experience of someone because that's the way that it had happened. Almost always alone together and that had been the norm. So, everything together just showed the person I worry about every other day that they remain silent may not even exist.
I was angry, I felt betrayed and hurt. A hot-white fury fuelled
by thoughts that I’d been lied to. I can’t stand lies. I don’t need to be lied
to. It’s exhausting and hurtful. I’d rather be stung by truth than be strung
along with lies. Even the possibility of lies threw off my whole worldview.
A worldview I’ve build thinking that I was doing right by
caring for others. Being concerned about the silent types.
I know what the darkness feels like. I’ve isolated myself. But
I tried coming out of my cocoon and being honest after spending a long time in
silence. Turns out, hasn’t been all that great trying to live honestly.
More than 7 years ago I had a conversation with someone I no
longer know. It was about fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of commitment and
fear of love. This conversation took place in the flour and rice aisle in MHCC.
I was in high school and I thought I’d figured everything out (as you do at
almost 18).
His words egged me into something that still haunts me.
Trusting in emotion. Letting life take you in a direction you can’t plan,
predict. Pretending that I was steel as long as I professed my emotions and
wore them on my sleeve.
It was something that just hurt the whole way through. People
that cared for me encouraged change but I thought my mind was made up about
everything because of what my heart said.
Ehhhhhhhh. In short? I’ve been an idiot.
Emotions are sensitive things or at least mine are. Easily
bruised. Nerves bare. Spirals of self-doubt and self-loathing. Questioning and
re-questioning after being conditioned to exist in… ‘the relationship zone’.
A few months ago, as I stared out the window of the work-car
I let my mind wander. I wondered what it would be like to turn into a side
road, go adventuring, wade out into the ocean and sit and meditate among the
trees. It had been a long time since I felt the outside pull at me.
I’d lost myself in and in-between relationships.
I thought of my phases in life around the people I’ve liked.
My emotional attachments have dictated the music I listen to, the art I’m drawn
into, the clothes I feel comfortable in, the people I spend time with.
It’s disgusting really.
After 5 years in a stable relationship, something clicked.
I don’t know what it’s like to just get up and let your
whims take you. After 7 years of anxiety, I don’t know what it’s like to walk
barefoot through grass listening to the sounds of other living things without
holding someone’s hand.
I’m not going to break up with my partner though. That would
be weird.
I talked to him instead.
Things went well.
But I have been meditating more. Reflecting more. Reading
cards.
I’m trying to remember the odd flower child I want to be.
Breathing the dark thoughts away rather than indulging them. Breaking bad
habits. It may take a while. I’ve only been twisting myself here and there for
about a decade now.
My heart may be convincing but she's a little too sensitive to be the one in charge.