Part 2: From the Outside Looking in you'll never understand it; From the Inside Looking out you'll never be able to explain it.

This is part 2 of my last post. I have been thinking about what I wrote since then. I have come to realize that I think something I am going to struggle with my whole life is finding the balance of caring about someone but not letting it affect me personally. This is something I absolutely am going to have to learn if I go into the counseling field. If I ever have a family of my own, I don't want to come home and bring the burdens of my clients with me. I think I will eventually learn that balance as I have in growing in maturing but it is something I am continually going to probably struggle with concerning the people who are closest to me.

Going off of that note and my previous post, why is it that I have felt the need for so long to give my everything to making everyone else happy but completely ignoring myself-well not completely but largely. This is a quote by C.S. Lewis that came to mind today:

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”

I feel like this could not have been a better depiction of my heart; this is exactly how I feel about loving. I only love people who I know are "safe". It has even taken me a long time with the people I feel very safe with to fully open up about the deepest darkest wounds I possess. Since I have focused on other people so much, I have hidden my heart, hoping in the process no one would want to come along and want to see inside it. There have been a few select individuals that have come close and a small handful that have gotten there. The unfortunate part about that is that almost all of these individuals have immensely hurt, no not hurt, shattered my heart. These have not just been guys I have dated but even other people I am very close too, family included, males and females. There are days like today for instance that I struggle immensely. I feel like I am never going to be able to trust anyone enough to spend the rest of my life with them or every time I find someone who I think meets my expectations, I always end up finding something wrong. Part of me believes that I have locked up my heart so intensely and made the fence just high enough that NO ONE will ever be able to get in. I told my roommate tonight that a nunnery is looking like a really good option right now.

I am too scared to take a risk because every time I have taken a risk it always ends up being so incredibly painful and ends up being a very long healing process. The old song and adage really had been on my mind lately: "Is it better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all? ".

Growing up has it perks but at the same time, you become aware of many of these things you would have never known before. Another thought that has been on my mind this week is "It is better to have the ugly truth than a beautiful lie." I guess I need to stop, take a deep breath, and truly turn my heart over to God. I think if anything, he is having to crush me into dust in order to fully trust him.

One day at a time.