The last time I looked at this site was 3 months ago (give or take a day or two). Before that, it had been over a year…. and before that, who the hell even knows!
I used to be able to write my feelings, thoughts, experiences and ideas down so easily. It took little to no effort at all. I had an English professor in college that said I was a natural at what is termed as “automatic writing”. I had the inane knack of being able to let my mind go into automatic pilot and just write.
My mom told me over and over again I should write a book. Not necessarily because of my experiences, but because of the way I was able to express feelings and thougts so vividly and precisely on paper.
All that seemed to change several years ago. I could never really figure out what happened until last night. Last night while watching Grey’s Anatomy, the character Christina Yang was explaining to her boyfriend why she held so much of herself back. Can you believe it? My “AHA!” moment came from watching a damn TV show!? Believe me, the ridiculousness isn’t lost on me.
Anyway, she said EXACTLY what I have been feeling all these years and couldn’t put my finger on. She said, in a span of maybe 2 minutes, tops, what I have been wrestling with and trying to realize for at the very least, 11 years now.
All summed up, wrapped up in a little package, stamped, labeled and ready for storage… at least 11 years of confusion, frustration, anger, sadness, loss, pain and tears spewed in nice neat little sentences from an actress’s mouth on a primetime program on TV. Weird.
What she said was the reason for her not giving much of herself, was how a past relationship effected her and it was my so-called indescribable feelings put into words.
In my past relationship, I kept giving away pieces of myself, so slowly that i didn’t even notice. I didn’t notice that every time I was cheated on, lied to, pushed away, only to be pulled back again was chipping away pieces of me. I thought it was chipping away pieces of us, in the relationship. I didn’tnotice until the very end that all of it was doing damage to me. And even then, I didn’t realize to the core of my being that what I sacrificed in the name of love, what I gave in the name of honor and commitment, what i lived and breathed because I beleived in her, in us, was chipping away little bits and pieces of myself because it was all for not. I was doing what I never intended to do, I was doing what I swore I’d never do… let my love for someone take pieces of myself.
Maybe I did brush up against this realization a time or two over the years, because I can specifically remember a time, several years after our breakup we talked. I told her then that I still struggled with stuff. I told her that it was unfair to my current partner (with whom I am still with), because I had given her everything I had, and when I didn’t have anymore to give, I some how, some way found more- I had believed in us that much. But now in my current relationship I feel tapped out. Like I just don’t have anything left to give. And I guess I haven’t. Little by little things were being chipped away.
Go figure, the lightbulb went off while watching a damn TV show!