Emotional intimacy is a strange thing. I crave it. I fear it. I often reject it outright. I long to belong. More than anything else. I long to belong.

In therapy, before the closing proceedings of paying the money, I said, "It's just hard, when you feel so alone in the world. Which isn't even true anymore! I am not alone anymore!" And the therapist agreed that I am not alone anymore. And I said, chuckling a bit, "Ah, but hat will change, too, eventually!"
My therapist's answer? "Maybe".

Maybe? Have I become the optimistic one in this relationship? Do I have more trust in myself and the process now than she does?

I don't know. But I crave it: this feeling of belonging and of intimacy. At the same time I run from it whenever the opportunity presents itself - by either telling myself I am only deluding myself that people like me, or by saying, "I don't REALLY want this!"

It hurts to be rejected. And I fear that rejection so much that sometimes I think I'd rather just not be intimate at all.

Yesterday I felt that stab of rejection. Not because anyone rejected me personally, directly, but because I was left out of some conversations that I would have loved to be part of.

And it hurts. And my first reaction is to say, "Nope, no more!" I say, "is" because it still is. I am fighting against it, right here, right now, right this moment.

I am trying to breathe through this and comfort the parts that feel so hurt by being left out. The ones that carry tremendous pain inside of them of times where being rejected was the worst thing because we were dependent on the people who rejected us. We depended on them physically and/or emotionally. And I try to remind them that this is not the same thing: our survival now does not depend on whether we are included in some people's conversations or not. And it still hurts. And I see you hurting. I see you hurting and offer you a hug and the joy of belonging HERE. NOW. With me, with us inside. A home within ourselves.

As I write this I feel less burdened, less panicked. I hurt a bit less. And I breathe some more and I grieve some things that were lost.

I just looked out the window. I see trees there, swaying in the wind with their red-orange leaves shaking as if they were on fire. And it grounds me. Sometimes all is not as it seems, isn't it? Sometimes we think we are less a part of somebody's life than we are. Or we are in a different part of their lives. Or we are less part of their life than they are for us. OR things just aren't the way we perceive them: maybe the intimacy we think we see happening is something else entirely.

I am sad. I am sad and I am grieving some losses and I am tending those inside who are hurting even more than I am. Because I need to find healing for myself and for them. I cannot shut the doors the way I wanted to last night and the way I wanted to this morning. I don't want to shut doors, build walls that nobody can ever get through. I don't want to be locked inside of myself, convinced I don't belong, will never belong and that everybody thinks I am replaceable. Because with this comes loneliness, hardness, bitterness, pain, and absolutely no warmth, no healing, no joy, nothing. Just me, fighting inside of myself with my parts, scratching, clawing at walls *I* built, screaming for someone to let me out when I am the one keeping myself locked away.

I want to stay open. And I want to offer the warmth of my fire - a metaphor between my therapist and I. The fire is the love, compassion, healing and warmth I have to offer to other people, the sense of BELONGING that I can offer to other people.
Instead of looking for other people's fires I can offer my own for people to sit at. I belong. And I can help other people - big or small - feel that sense of love, wonder, belonging, too.

So I need to tend to this fire. Keep it burning. If I lock myself away, there's no fire for anyone to sit at. Neither me nor anyone else who might need it, who might want to share it with me.

So ... I stay vulnerable. I stay open. I keep the paths to my heart clear of debris - I want people to be able to find their way to it easily.

Here the alarm bells go off inside of me: But what about the "bad people", a kid screams. And I say, "Not those people. People who hurt us or anyone else are not allowed into our heart. We are watching for these people and we are an adult now and can defend ourselves and our heart against those people. We are strong, tall, capable. We are safe."

And so the negotiating goes on. But I am set on what I want, and I am set on getting there.

"Maybe"?

No! I say.

I am certain.

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