Sleepless Butterfly
I drank too much Chinese tea tonight and can’t sleep. Have been lying in bed tossing and turning.Right now I feel very content. It is the happiest I have felt in a long time. Since the earth cracked and molten earth flowed through the family home, I’d like to think that things have settled down a little.
We went out to dinner with family friends tonight. And despite a little tension in the car as I nervously navigated and merged into speedy night traffic, things were fairly pleasant. Mother is making an obvious attempt to accept the reality that her daughter is growing up.
I don’t want this pleasantness to end.
Now that the boyfriend has essentially won me in this horrid battle of wills he is congenial to the point where is supportive. But more importantly, I feel like our relationship has yet again moved up a level in intimacy. One of his complaints last Monday night was that whenever we argue I clam up. I shut down and become passive-aggressive, leading to him continually talking and me sitting in silence.
Since Saturday night I no longer feel scared in voicing my true self to him. If anything, tonight, lying in bed, I notice that I am continually thinking of the many things that I want to tell him. Not that our relationship was ever based on me never speaking a word, but right now, it seems like there is even more for me to talk to him about.
I am starting to open up to him. Open up my true self. I am starting to trust him. And the belief that He Knows Best and will always do right by me has yet again been reemphasized in my mind.
I would trust him with my life.
His main argument on Saturday night was that he wanted me to be happy. He wanted me to be able to do whatever it was that I wanted because my first and only responsibility in life is to be happy. Not to make him, my mother, or any other person on the planet happy, but rather to make myself happy. Because if I’m not happy then how can I expect anyone else to be happy?
Fair enough.
I remember going to a counseling session two months ago where the counselor pointed out to me that one of the things that makes me very happy is spending time with my boyfriend. And that is so true. Every time I am around him my world lights up. Is it the sex? Is it the euphoria that comes with love making that makes me so happy to be around him? I don’t know. I had to practically tear myself out of his arms this morning when I left. I’d driven down to visit, and upon my departure hugged him goodbye. And the more I hugged, the more I didn’t want to stop hugging him.
I love kissing him, I love touching him, I love hugging him. But I also love how he kisses me, how tender he can be when he makes love to me, how warm and safe he makes me feel when he hugs me. And that, I think, is the most important part. He makes me feel secure. He makes me feel warm. He makes me feel loved.
It’s like he creates this little oasis where as clichéd as it sounds, all my worries fall away. That’s some line from a song isn’t it? ‘All my worries fall away..’
When he hugs me, all I feel is happiness. It rises from within and envelops me in a misty haze. I close my eyes and the feeling just washes over me like when you immerse yourself in a relaxing bubble bath.
I couldn’t stop hugging him today.
It pleases me to know that I can trust him with anything. When I rang him up on Saturday night, my goal was to discuss, not accuse or end things. I want to share everything with him. I want to share my life with him. I want to share every facet of my thought processes with him because I know that he wants the same. He wants me to be part of his life, and it seems so do I.
Personally, I find this is perhaps one of the most important steps that I can make in this relationship. He argued that at the crux of all our arguments was his desire to make me act like an adult. He is probably correct. All my life I’ve lived under the shadow of my mother. Always doing what I intuitively believed was what she wanted or approved of, never asking myself if that was in fact what I personally wanted or believed in. I have always lived by her values and never thought once to question whether they were in fact my own.
So when I take a step back and think about this more philosophically, I know for a fact that this man is good for me. I told him the other night that one of the reasons why I loved him so much was because he challenged me. Challenged me in ways that I would otherwise never face. And while at the time, I may not have 100% believed what I was telling him, tonight I think I believe that a whole lot more.
In all, it seems like things are improving. Overall, things are improving. I no longer find myself scared to voice certain truths or try and hide things from him. I find myself biting the bullet a whole lot more and asking him questions that can lead to him making judgement calls on me.
I think one of the things that holds me back as a person is my desire to be liked and loved. I constantly seek to find what traits a person looks for in others and try to emulate those traits. I end up trying to be that ‘perfect’ person in that person’s eyes. When what I should really be doing is just being myself, and not care so much about what other people think. My mantra should be, ‘This is who I am, and who gives a stuff about whether you like me or no? This is who I am.’ Clichéd, I know. But it’s clichéd for a reason – because it’s true.
Yet, while I rebelliously present a façade to the outside world that I am in fact different and self-assured, inside I am still a little girl. I will subversively try my best to be the type of person that you approve of, while continuing to present an outer persona that appears to be rebelling against the common establishment.
I won’t work in an airline company despite my envy of their employee benefits because I do not want to be viewed as a lemming – friends that I personally consider to be a little lower on my rung of ‘persons of worth and note’ already work in the airline industry, and therefore I choose not to denigrate myself. Instead, I’d rather be the trailing blaze of fire that speeds through life leaving others to envy me. Most likely, just like everyone else, I want to be the impactor rather than the impactee. I want to be the trailblazer. I want to be the envy of others.
Paradoxically, I will tie myself up into knots when I encounter a situation such as this one that I’m currently in, when I try to fit into the social norms. I find it difficult to voice my beliefs or desires when they do not fit into those very social norms that dictate who we are. It seems that my rebellion against the code or the status quo is so subtle that others viewing my actions would probably classify it as either petty or simply immature.
All my life all I seem to want to do is fit in. And at the same time, I also desire to be different. To be accepted while having my little niche. My little eccentricities that stop me from being like ‘all the others.’
I want everything to turn out ok. And while I sit up tonight typing all this out, I can’t help but feel a quiet sense of excitement. I can’t help but feel that this all may turn out well after all. I just have to take this slow. And hopefully, step by step, I will reach the light at the end of the tunnel.
posted by Enigmatic Butterfly @ 3:56 am
1 Comments:
Arriving at the point where you can truly be yourself with another... that's a big step.
i am smiling for you.
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