Slaying Dragons

When a friend gave me a giant pixie stix I put it on my bathroom mirror with a sign that said, "I am worth loving." But something happened.

I started realizing how much I freak out when people are TRULY LOVING to me when I'm not expecting it. I feel out of control and I fear the "loss" of self that comes with vulnerability and intimacy.

Someone I love and respect once said that love is dangerous and beautiful and I really resonated with that. But I never realized how much I LOVE people without expecting or allowing them to LOVE ME IN RETURN. I give love but I don't receive love well.

When someone came over here and made me soup when I was sick I freaked out. I just did. I said, "If I let you love me then I can NEED YOU. And if I NEED YOU, that makes me VULNERABLE." Instead of just saying, "Thank you for your kindness to me."

Imagine how hurtful that was to the person making me soup. I felt awful for two reasons. One was that I had a terrible fever and was almost hallucinating and the other was that I was feeling vulnerable because I didn't get to dictate how and when someone was nice to me. Being loved during neediness is wickedly hard for me.

It brings about all those feelings of my deepest needs. And each of us has our achilles heel - the thing we WANT but have a hard time accepting.

So I wrote on my little sign above, "I am worth loving" - "It is safe to be loved" and "I allow love" because I realize that being worth it doesn't mean I am LETTING people love me.

Meanwhile, I have been pondering the quote by Stephen King that people laughed about:
"Harry Potter is about confronting fears, finding inner strength and doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend."

And while I am no expert on either HP or the sparkley vamps - I will say this: Some things - like matters of the heart and issues relegated to "the roles of girls and old women" are often diminished. I've heard other scholars I respect say nay- it is because Twilight is glorified as literature. But THAT is not what King said now is it? He is mocking boyfriends and romance. That giggling stuff girls do as teens. Yet BEING LOVED and romance and gushy heart stuff is something most people don't get right EVER.

We don't know how to DO relationship with ourselves, our families, our children, our significant others. We have written epic poems about it since we knew how to record our words. It is NOT something for only teen girls. Matters of the heart are only now being mocked as something for teens and old ladies. But they aren't are they?

There is magic in learning to be still with ourselves. There is joy in forgiveness. And there is something powerful in learning how to do healthy relationship with ourselves and with our friends and family and with significant others. This isn't silly tween stuff. It isn't religious. It isn't political. And it isn't just shite literature or day television.

The dragons of connection and fate and fear and vice and sexuality and pain and desire and fighting ones worst moments always come from our memories and our family ties and our early friendships. And those are big deals.