More shoes...

Fuck the other shoe.

There's a label on that shoe and the label is "trust". 

Not trust in the way that you trust someone when you let them into your life. I, in fact, trust too easily. I have very often trusted men in the past with my heart because they made me feel something. So I immediately trusted they would take my heart and eventually give me theirs in return, once I figured out how to be who I thought they wanted me to be.

But the trust I struggle with is the trust that someone will stay and be who I need them to be.

My family has always given me mixed messages when it comes to this. They are amazing when it comes to concrete things - I need money, I need a car, I need something tangible. But where they have fallen short is in the emotional arena. This has been made crystal clear this week. Won't bore you with the details but when my sister finally called me a week after my first chemo treatment (no contact before, during or immediately after) to "see how I was", she gave me about a minute and a half of her attention before the conversation eventually turned to how unhappy she is because her step-kids aren't taking care of the dogs and there's dog shit in the house. And all I could think was, I had chemo six days ago and you're talking to me about dog shit.

And it hit me. 

That's the big fucking clown I can't kill. The clown that dangles the carrot of love and affection in front of me and then sadistically yanks it away just when I can almost reach it.

Now, my family does their best. They really do. And my relationship with my sister is a work-in-progress, slowly growing. But I have to accept that she is never going to give me the connection that I need. Maybe my role in her life is to be there for her, with no expectation of return.

So when I finally find myself in a normal, healthy relationship, I don't know what to do. I keep waiting for him to behave the way I know - hang the carrot of love and affection in front of me and just when I'm a heartbeat away from actually getting what I want, yank it away from me and leave me to fall to pieces.

So right now, I get to choose. 

I get to choose whether to live by what I know and make myself crazy over and over again, waiting for a shoe that may not exist to fall. Let the dysfunctional lessons of my life continue to rule my world and just sit and wait. Because if I just wait, surely that shoe will fall.

Or I can choose to say fuck the shoe.

I can choose to figure both shoes are on the ground with nowhere to go. I can choose to trust that the Filmmaker is everything that he has shown me to be. And that when this does end, he will be everything he has shown me he is and he will hand my heart back to me as gently as possible. I can choose to break the dysfunction and see what happens if I truly trust.

"There's something so familiar and still so unknown
But the closer that we get 
I swear it feels like coming home
And I'm ready to be brave."

Wise words from Keith Urban.

I'm ready to be brave.