Undefined

Dear OOMA:

I know why you attract me and frighten me at the same time. I finally figured it out.

You could define me.

You are everything that has attracted me to a man in the past. You are smart, funny, articulate, passionate, and extremely talented. I find that most men can’t keep up with me, particularly intellectually, or they are intimidated by my being an intelligent woman who doesn’t know how to bat her eyelashes or toss her hair to get their attention. A lot of men can’t relate to me on a cerebral level, which makes it all that much more exciting and attractive when someone does. You could help me grow as an artist, help me find my way and help me explore who I am. You could shape me and guide me and be a partner at my side.

And the men in my past that have shared those traits I had always seen as someone who could define me positively, make me a better person, make me a better artist, make my life better by just being in it.

And they didn’t. They almost destroyed me in the process.

I came to them undefined and allowed their desires, their requirements, their projections of what I should be shape who I am. I never really thought I had a choice because I always thought that we shaped each other. But I was wrong. My shape became distorted and grotesque and unidentifiable.

I am now just beginning to put my hands into the clay to decide what shape I want to be and I am terrified that if I let you – or any other man at this point – put their hands in the clay as well that the shape I am beginning to see in my mind’s eye will be lost and will become what you - or they – want it to be and not what I want it to be. I am terrified that, despite all my best efforts and all my determination to not allow this to happen again, that I will wake up in five months or five years or 15 years and wonder how I found myself here again, starting over again, staring at the lump of clay and wondering where that delicate shape went that I began so long ago went.

Yet part of me so wants someone like you to be the one who takes me and shapes me and makes me something because then I don’t have to do the work. I don’t have to be responsible for being the way that I am because I didn’t know what I was doing, I let someone else do the work and I just took whatever came along with that. I’m tired of trying to see the shape in the clay and when I look into your eyes, I see you have a shape already in mind, whatever that is. And I want to be that shape you see, I want to turn into that fine sculpture and make you smile and make you proud and make you say, see what I did, I made that.

But I have to take ownership of my own formation. And I’ve never had to do that before. And I’m terrified that, during that process, I am going to lose you, both as a potential partner for whatever might happen but also as the dear, close, intimate friend that you are. I’m afraid that my fear will not let me lower the guards around me to truly find a way to convey to you what you mean to me because that would leave me vulnerable to letting you take some of this control away from me as I try to see who I am. And I don’t know if our friendship can survive all of my insecurities about you and me and us and everything around us. I’m afraid that you’ll tire of my endless confusion and indecision and crossed signals and simply walk away, gently, quietly, leaving me to wonder where you went. And a part of me would be incomplete because, no matter how you did it, you have left your handprints on my life and on my formation, without my seeing it. So far, those handprints have been a precious part of this delicate formation. But will you stay around to see what the results are?

So I am stuck, needing, wanting you to be a part of what’s going on and tell me what you think and show me what to do, yet I resent that I want that from you. My divided self cannot make up its mind about whether to pull you close and hide within you or drive you away so that I don’t have to ever face what could happen, good or bad.

I have to define myself first, at least partly, before I can really let anyone in, I guess. I have to protect that precarious beginning in me so that it won’t be tainted and twisted and ruined before it begins. And if it means sacrificing you and our friendship or whatever this relationship is, then I have to accept that it wasn’t the right friendship or relationship if it cannot survive my taking the time to arrive at who I desire to be. I hope you stay around, I hope you’re still here when I get there, because I would love nothing more than to sit down with you over some delicious repast and share with you the person I have become and watch your eyes light up the way they do when you’re so delighted at something I’ve done or when I make you laugh or when we’re sharing something dear and close to both our hearts. I want to be able to share this journey with you, as you started out on it with me, and keep you close to me as I go. And, who knows, maybe along the way, I might get my handprints on you a bit, which might not be a bad thing.

Luv. =)