Of Camels And Ducks

Oh the irony of writing one thing one day and turning around the next day with a whole other set of insecurities and hurts knocking at your door, waiting to take you down, yet again, but from a different angle.

I am an emotional duck. Or maybe a swan.

You know that saying about how ducks and swans are seen to be gliding along the surface of the pond, all smooth and elegant, serene and calm, while underneath the water their little legs are going like crazy to keep them going?

Yeah, well that's me and my emotions.

And you combine that with all the camels that make up my life and I feel like all my backs are getting broken by these tiny little things that shouldn't matter but then they're just the tipping point and it's no wonder I feel like I'm sitting here not even knowing how to explain myself. (And can't help but wonder why it feels like so much straw is getting thrown my way lately.)

However I was raised, or whatever it is that hurt me or made me wary I am who I am at this moment and I'm not sure that that person is capable of holding good solid relationships.

My Mom tells me that even as a child I would only have one close friend. I wouldn't have said that about my childhood if you'd asked me, but that's how she sees it.

I think what I see myself as doing, as being, is protective of myself. And wary of being hurt and left.

Or perhaps more to the point, of people choosing someone else over me.

Because that's what happens.

A best friend would find a new friend or a friend who lived closer or a friend who played on their team or was in their class and that new friend would get their attention and I'd fade into the background until someone else would want to spend time with me and share their stories and secrets.

There was a while there where I had a good solid group of friends, but I moved away for a year and when I got back they'd moved on and I was never really able to reconnect with anyone in quite the same way; I was always just slightly on on the outside.

My friends now have all moved on in their own way too. They've all married, many of them have had kids and it moves you to the outside; to the periphery.

And so maybe all this pre-loads my camels with so much straw on their backs that it doesn't take much for me to be hurt, for that back to get re-broken and no, I don't know why I'm built this way so no, I don't know how to change it.

Some people are good at that. C-Dawg's good at that. She can recognize where she has walls up or is working from past hurts and she can call herself on it and try to fix it.

I don't even know where I'm coming from half the time.

Case in point? This weekend.

C-Dawg made a comment about the way I was reacting to her new relationship and I was completely surprised. It's not the first time lately that I've been spoken to about how people are perceiving me so I tried to see where I may have made her feel that way and I apologized.

But the things with my damn camels is that the straw just seems to stick there. It's not like it blows itself back off once I've dealt with the issue, and so then suddenly we're dealing with something that's not even about what it's about.

C-Dawg wants to move forward with her running whereas I don't, exactly. I kind of just want to stick at where I'm at while maybe getting a little bit faster and increasing my cardio. But generally, I want to stick at "still enjoying it" and "middle of the pack."

I understand and respect her desire to push herself and know exactly how she feels. I'm just not there.

Which should be totally fine, right? Absolutely. I want to be the one on the sidelines cheering her on as she zips by in her fourth marathon.

Except for my damn camels.

Because all of a sudden it's not about her wanting to run faster and father than I do, it's about her not wanting to be with me anymore.

It's about our lives going in separate directions.

I'd wanted running to be "our" thing and all of a sudden I see her slipping away and moving on with a life that doesn't include me. A life that includes a new boyfriend and her son and their lives together and her running both literally and figuratively away from me.

Which isn't what it's about.

C-Dawg just wants to run.

But here's the thing with me and my little duck legs.

Because I know when she tells me that she wants to join a clinic I can't make it to that the absolute sadness that comes over me isn't about the clinic. I just can't get to what it is about so I withdraw.

And C-Dawg notices.

Most people don't. Most people just see the duck, floating along, serene and calm. They don't realize what's going on and how twisted and anxious and hurt I am on the inside.

She notices damn fast.

And this time it sort of feels like our wires got crossed and as I sit here writing this I feel like I'm sitting here waiting for one of the people I care most about in the world to write me an email saying she's done with me.

Because that's how it's worked for me in the past.

That's the straws and the baggage and the scars and whatever other metaphors you can come up with.

People leave me.

Friends move on. Boyfriends break up with me. And now, with my Dad being sick, the reality becomes that parents die.

I've somehow learned that keeping people at a safe distance helps. Helps the hurt to hurt less. So it's such a risk for me to have a close friend when that opens up the potential to be left.

And hurt.

But I don't know what to do.

I don't know if I'm supposed to just babble out every little thing I'm upset about or if I'm supposed to wait until I'm calmer.

I've been fighting myself this weekend, fighting the urge and the habit to push C-Dawg away because that's usually what I do in this situation. I see the situation turning in some way and feel the potential for me to get really really hurt so I push away first.

And I've been trying not to do that. Am trying to grow here.

But I feel like my duck legs and my straw-backed camels screwed me over and how many times can you ask someone to be patient? How many times can you ask someone to understand you when you don't even understand yourself.

I don't know what I should do. Do I keep people at that safe distance and just live with the alone that comes with that? Or do I let people in and be inevitably hurt and disappointed because we're all only human and no one can read my mind.

Perhaps I am an incredibly selfish and self-involved person. Because sometimes I feel like the world should revolve around me damnit. I sometimes get to a point where I feel like I've given so much to so many and at the end of the day it's still just me taking care of me and watching out for me, when what I'd like is someone in my life taking care of me the way I try to take care of my loved ones. But I think my loved ones don't know how to take care of me sometimes because I'm scared to tell them what I need.

I'm scared to tell them because they might say no, or they might roll their eyes, or they might leave me, so I sit and I wait and I hope and I send them mental brain waves and hope that they read my mind because isn't it clear that my little legs are flailing away just under the surface of the water here?

Isn't it clear that my camels are already over loaded and I need help un-packing them?

Isn't it clear that I still haven't learned to find myself really, truly, honestly to be someone people would choose to love.

I think I've always wanted to be first in someone's life, but I'm really starting to think that maybe I'm not someone who will ever have that.

Or maybe you'll tell me that that's not actually how it works.