I’ve been hanging out with this needy and insecure chick for about a week and a half now. She is precious and fun, but for some reason she’s having a hard time trusting herself. She needs constant reassurance, and affirmation flung at her, like mischievous monkeys flinging poo at the zoo. And this is the perfect metaphor, because this need of hers is bullshit and she feels like crap. Her energy is stressing me out. I want to distance myself from her but she keeps showing up. How do you ditch someone who lives with you? Inside you? Is you? Yeah, it’s me, but I prefer to talk about her like she is someone else, because 1) it doesn’t feel like me, and 2) I don’t like her!
She showed up unexpectedly in the middle of a magical weekend at Joshua Tree while I was camping with my man, me Lady Caroline and a Texan. The desert Martian landscape was a hot bed for freedom-filled frolicking, courageous climbing and overall outdoor bliss. The love was flowing and so was the ice-cold white wine. It was damn hot and that mystical clear liquid was hitting my system like sugar bombs on the playground. The sweet, jovial, hyperactive high, followed by an inevitable dusk laden crash. Needless to say, I got hammered and hit the camper early that night.
In the past, I would have woken up ashamed of my “behavior” and embarrassed that I had gotten so drunk. Those days have since passed and I now choose not to judge going a little overboard or having too good of a time. Besides, I had something entirely new to judge myself for on this morning. Opening my eyes and laying in the arms of my magnificent man, he opens his and starts giggling.
“Do you remember what you said to me last night?”
“No.”
Through a sly smile and a barrage of more giggling, he finally gets it out. You said, “I think I love you more than you love me………….and that’s okay.”
We both erupt into wild laughter. How ridiculous! Why would I say that? Wait! Why did I say that? Where on earth did that come from? This didn’t make any sense. We all joked about this and other absurd happenings from the night before throughout the day. I tried to shake my confusion over what I had said, but a weight had settled in on my heart and didn’t want to budge. This heaviness was added to later by something the Texan said. I had met him for the first time months earlier at the height of my pleasure dating endeavors. I was outspoken in my case for pleasure, a real firecracker going off for female fabulousness. His experience of me now was a gushy gal going gaga over her guy.
His comment. “Your man really loves how independent you are. I would hate for you to lose that thing that attracted him to you.”
Barf! Squirm! Boo! Hiss!
What is going on? Am I no longer the independent, strong goddess I once was? Am I sabotaging my relationship by being too loving? Too goo goo? Now I was really in my head and making up all kinds of asinine stories. I better tone it down so he sees how strong I am. I should really distance myself so he knows what it feels like to miss me. I better go off alone into the desert on a solo walkabout to prove that I can fully take care of myself. Oh brother! Everything that my mind came up with shot darts of desperation into my chest and layered my shoulders with a tense and icky film of inauthenticity. The gag reflect ignited within was a sure indicator that changing for my man was NOT in my pleasure. So then why did I continue to feed my fear with erroneous thoughts of my man’s waning love for me? How does one go from utterly impenetrable love, to the self-destruction of planting land mines at your own feet?
By not speaking up! That’s how! By forgetting that I have committed to being in my pleasure at all times. And this means speaking my truth, honoring what is present and communicating exactly what I want. All the time! No exceptions! And this is not just for me. This is a favor to everyone I ever come into contact with. The more I worried, the more the false folklore grew. The crazier the plot got, the creepier my reality became. My thoughts made him the bad guy and all of the sudden I had a villain for my negative fairytale. The worse I thought, the less I talked. Holding in my crazy made me feel stifled, unexpressed and super sensitive. Like I wasn’t being seen. And I wasn’t, because the real me wasn’t showing up. I locked her away in a dungeon somewhere under the alleged crime of “not being independent enough.”
And the truly crazy thing is that I was keeping my mouth shut for fear of opening it and becoming “that girl.” The one who creates problems, gets emotional and is needy. “That girl” that surely no man can tolerate, let alone love (please note sarcasm). But in my desperate attempt to destroy her, I was actually allowing her to envelop me like the blob. My desire to not rock the boat, caused me to just go and flip it right over.
So now that I have fallen in and am all wet, the poo poo has washed away. Drenched in the aftermath of my own hell, I made the immensely self-honoring decision to love myself first and foremost. And guess what? This is what my man loves about me! This is where my independence stems from. My unfaltering love for myself will never leave me wanting or needy. I was foolishly gasping for the air that is always there.
Sometimes we simply forget to be our undeniably fabulous selves. This is why we have great girlfriends and bitchin boyfriends, to help us remember. We just gotta keep asking for exactly what we want. I finally ripped out my guts and laid them on my man’s outstretched arms. He held them gently for me and patiently waited for me to hand him more. “Oh that’s all I got for now honey,” I said. “But could you do me one more favor?”
“Of course,” he sweetly replied.
“Could you make sure I always remember how awesome I am?”
And he said, “You got it babe.”
Proclamation #5: I vow to fiercely honor my pleasure at all times because I know that doing so is the most beautiful and nicest thing I could possibly do for anyone else.
