supposed to be taking notes
I’m listening to Hayley Williams while I try to reconcile everything that’s happened and convince myself that I’m not lost, or broken, or cursed. I do find it odd that I’ve been in this situation, one set of circumstances or another, three times. Or four. Maybe five. How come the least fucked up of those times was with a man I’d known for a week, had absolutely no interest in, and will never see again? Yeah, he might’ve wrapped his hand around my throat a few times without asking, and totally ignored my very obvious body language when I didn’t want to kiss him. I don’t like that, but it was so tame compared to the others that I hardly ever think of it. I’m not scared of him. I’m not traumatized. It’s remarkable, honestly, that I’ve made it this far. That I don’t hate men much, much more, without apology, without hesitation.
It’s remarkable, too, the degree to which I’ve internalized this pattern. Because I haven’t done so the absolute most that I could. No, I could blame myself much more than I do. But the blame is there, and I don’t know how to make it any smaller. Here’s where I stand for now, as far as I can tell. I’m drawn to it. Something in me is like a magnet. A divining rod, leading me to unholy water in every man.
And drink, oh, drink I will.
The simplest answer is the creature comfort of familiar instability. And I know Freud haters are boring, but I’m with them here — there’s no way that’s it. Right? Especially if I’m so aware of it, and have been for years. Is it egotistical of me to think it’s actually my unusually perceptive intuition? That, and my persistent hope in the face of it all. I don’t care if that’s brazen. I think I’m right.
I can sense it, that deeply laid selfish tendency below miles of modest righteousness and cloudy nonargument. I see it in them, I see it in them all, and I want to prove it. I mean, really I want to be proven wrong. I want to find one worth trusting, one who can be handed the opportunity and turn it away, but I can never trust until it’s proven, until I’m sure. And they never pass the test, do they?
I guess the whole basis for this, the expectation that a man who tries to love me is bound to hurt me, does come from the original betrayal. My blood-bound and doting oppressor. The source of my violence, the agent of my pain, my father.
I do not know all of what my father has done to me. I do not know the significance of that, and I probably never will. How will I know what I’m missing, if I’m missing it for a reason? How will I know if this fear is exaggerated, if I have a real reason to be afraid?
So I give them all the chance. Do it. Hurt me. You do it now, you think you won. But you will never hurt me as much as if I loved you, if I chose you, and you did it then. I might not survive that, but I’ll survive this.
I’ll be vulnerable now. I’ll shoulder the risk, and I’ll swallow the pain.
I’ll make it out alive.
I will make it out alive.
