Try Success

Over the last year there has been a world of emotional shit that I have refused to deal with in here and perhaps internally as well. I now find it necessary to re-evaluate myself. This is an imperative step in my growth as a person. Before I told myself I was not recording these things because I simply could not go through with the character assassination - either Dash's or mine, but I need to be honest with myself, figure out where all of this has come from and deal with it or I stand to lose not only the love of my life but any possibility for future happiness, be it with Dash or not.

Step #1 start with myself, because I believe we create our own suffering in the pursuit of our desires and wants.

By July 2009 my medical situation created within me certain questions I had not asked of our entire 7 year relationship. Because the doctor was worried I might rupture something, because the pain and gross side effects of sexual intercourse were thus I began to wonder why Dash would stay with or be faithful to a woman he could not be intimate with.

Problem #1 is feelings of inadequacy - I had never experienced low self-esteem before.
His answer of course was because he loved me. I could not believe that love alone was enough.

Why?

The conclusion I have come to is more Freudian than I am really comfortable with but I traced the line back through all my relationships with men and it unfortunately begins with my father. As a child there was no one I admired more. I did everything he asked of me, I followed him everywhere, and watched all that he did.

As I grew into a a teenager there was nothing I wanted more than for him to be proud of me but he wanted me to be things I was not such as athletic and social. I however loved books and boys.

The fact that he wasn't really present half the time because of the Navy didn't help either. This is where I believe my want of things I can not have stems from.

As a family we were never really all that affectionate or expressive in our feelings. Of course as a teen I sought that which I lacked in all the wrong places, love could only ever be expressed physically, and I sought solace in the beds of many. For brief moments in time it was the only thing that made me feel wanted and therefore still resonates with me the same way.

Growing into an adult left me with these incorrect and devastating assumptions. I find myself repeating the patterns with Dash. I want nothing more than for Dash to love me, be proud of me and accept me for who I am.

For 7 years I believed he did and it was about this time that he revealed to me that he had always had an issue with my appearance - my weight he said had always been a problem, that guys are physically driven towards attraction - and that he had tried to subtly steer me towards the gym because he wished that I was as beautiful on the outside as I was on the inside, he wanted everyone to see in me what he saw. He also stated that it depressed him no end that his girlfriend did not care how she looked.

This was devastating to me along with the feelings of failure I associated with the duties of a girlfriend (sex). I had always believed that he thought I was beautiful and that he accepted me as I was and gave me the room to be me. I asked how he could possibly love me since I believe that in order to love someone you must accept all that they are as they are - you don't have to like everything they do or say but respect them as is - not try to change them or mold them into what you want them to be. Shallow or not he said he just wanted to help me be the best me I could be.

From this point I began to doubt everything. It made for an extremely volatile emotional state. Between dealing with the physical pain of my medical state and the ardent ambiguity it was difficult for either Dash or the Ladybug to correctly guess what I would explode over, forcing Dash to start keeping things from me in order to avoid conflict. I understand the inclination but it forced me into a situation were I felt abandoned. The more alone I felt the more I raged, the more I raged the further he withdrew.

Problem #2 Secret and lies.

In August Dash and I both blundered into some trust issues. He had an explicit conversation with another female which I stumbled upon not accidentally. I expressed my displeasure, he acquiesced to my wishes not to continue such habits and we decided to try to move forward. Stated thusly I am all to aware that I am minimizing it's complete destruction of my certainty not in his ability to be faithful but in my acceptance that his capacity to love me would hold true. I did not trust him with my heart, I did not trust him to love me. I was certain he would hurt me and I began to search for reasons to be rid of him before he could do so.

I found fault at every opportunity and invented logical reasons for why or how my theories could be correct. From supposition to outright lies that I told myself only served to push him further away and forced him much later to lie directly to my face because nothing he said or did would compensate for my mentality. I adamantly refused to believe anything he told me, so truth or lies I was unbearable.

Why is trust so important?

For Dash it's about his pride. He has ever been an honorable, steadfast companion. He is duty bound to his word and nothing is of more significance than his integrity. I had audaciouly brought that into question and injured him possibly beyond repair.

He NEEDS me to be able to depend on the strength of his character and give him the benefit of the doubt. Complete faith in another human being is at best as mythical to me as unicorns. Trust is the foundation that the seed of our relationship needs to blossom into love once more.

He has never given me reason to doubt, not really. Poor choices and minor mistakes, sure. But failure - not once. The truth is I have held the whole world at arms length from fear. For every embrace offered me a slap in the face was granted the child of kindness. Fear that I might truly care for someone and that I would be rewarded for that blindness with pain, a pain I believed I could not suffer and live. Yet live I do not, for life is love and pain, taking the risk and losing and being better for the experience. I can only be enriched by those who cross in and out of my life like ships in the night passing through the turbulence into the arms of the moonlit sea.

Problem # 3 Let it be what it is . . . you can't fight the truth.

And then Sunday the 11th I did the unspeakable, for no good reason I kicked him out of our bed and our home in the middle of the night. Over the last year I have desperately tried to do everything in my power right down to the despicable to set him free of the horror that is me. I have been childish, unfair and wrong at every turn and still he comes back to me time and again, I don't deserve him and yet he has granted me this ONE LAST CHANCE to just allow him to love me and I'm afraid I'm going to fail but I am going to TRY!

So I shall measure my days by my successes not my failures. For success is the journey of joy not a destination of circumspect wallowing.