Pink Bomb by Joy Garnett
It saddens me to see how the landscape has changed in the emotional aftermath of loves lost, disappointments suffered. Just yesterday it seems that my friends and I were trying on men like dresses, all cares thrown to the wind (and the guys inevitably followed). Now, most of them are battering down the hatches, and warning me to do the same.
The thing is, their logic is sound. We have been hurt, and doubtless will again. I have friends who get hurt within the context of relatively sane and healthy relationships, given men's remarkable ability to say really stupid shit on a regular basis. And yet...and yet. These are the women who want to see me in a relationship. They know the highs and lows of love up close, and rather than attempt to protect me from the depths of the latter, they push me headfirst into the soaring heights of the former.
I will not live my life in fear. Let me love, I tell my friends, so many of them still licking their wounds long after they've scarred. Let me lose, if this slippery mercury of an emotion eludes my grasp once more. Because to my dopamine-flooded mind right now, there are two enemies at the gate. The first is a band of guerrilla fighters, ready to leave me winded and wounded without a moment's notice. The other is much more dignified. It marches steadily, polished uniforms on display. Its soldiers will lay siege to my heart, not to attack but to protect—if I let them. But I can't. To surrender to it would be to become a shell of myself. This is how it happens. The delusion of safety.
