Brokenness and Brick Walls

I've been thinking lately -- especially this weekend, my 25th college reunion -- that because I think I'm broken, I've been zeroing in on guys who are in some way broken as well.  Not necessarily choosing them, but feeling all too comfortable with them.  In the words of Baggage Reclaim, they feel like home.  HH and BJ fit the bill, and Fling Guy is clearly unavailable. CG seemed healthy, and that definitely scared me. I was scared that my supposed unhealthiness, my brokenness, would drive him away (and I did own my story about that with him, to my credit). Then he checked out of the Love Shack Hotel, and in a way I was able to relax because I could focus on that bit of drama.  Crazy, right?

Part of this whole pattern is that I feel like I don't deserve anything better.  Or maybe I'm scared to take a risk with something better.  One of the thoughts that's run through my mind as I've tried to determine whether or not to stay with CG -- as if that were an actual option at this point...hah! -- was that as someone just coming out of a toxic and unhealthy marriage, someone who chose badly based on my own fears and brokenness, someone who has so much to learn about things like boundaries and how to act in a relationship, I feel I need to practice before I get to do the real thing.  It's like a kind of work-study or apprenticeship thing.  Because I'm broken, I need to be in a broken relationship, possibly with a broken person (I won't even venture to say partner) until the brokenness goes away.  And I deliberately made the last part of that sentence impersonal, as if the brokenness in itself were a force, rather than me being the free agent who can and does choose to act in a healthy way.  It reminds me of a line from that West Side Story song -- Hey, I'm depraved on account of I'm deprived!  Because I'm broken, I have to be in a broken relationship until I somehow get "better."  The relationship is supposed to redeem me, but how can it, since it's unhealthy?  I know, I know, I'm supposed to redeem myself.  Yadayadayada.  Brain, meet heart.  Heart, meet brain.  Can the two of you please get your act together so you can work more collaboratively?

What this way of thinking also conjurs up is Yoda's old adage (and it's always old with Yoda, right?) -- There is no try. Either do or not do.  Maybe it's the idea of having both feet in?  If I hold back and put up walls around my heart -- and here I picture the Harvard red brick I saw today, renovated, of course, since I left there in 1988 -- then I'll be less likely to get hurt.  But really, it will mean I'll be emotionally unavailable and won't connect.  Like George Gray in Spoon River Anthology, I'll be a boat longing for the sea yet afraid.  And, as I think I've written before, what I'm most afraid of is my own fear.  I'm afraid of drowning in my feelings and not coming out on the other end.  When I was studying in London, a colleague took me to see a film from the 1960s called Peeping Tom.  The climax of the movie -- spoiler alert -- comes when you realize that the reason the murder victims look so terrified when they're discovered is that the killer has been forcing them to watch their own expressions of terror while they're being killed.  Okay, that's a big downer, sorry.  It's not really my type of movie.  But I clearly remember it after all of these years.  I have to say that I'm grateful I have this drive and anxiety that can actually propel me past the fear.  You can call is courage if you like.  But I'm still scared as hell about feeling anxious.  I'm scared of uncertainty.  It's hard for me to enjoy the moment.  I want to nail things down so I know the outcome, and I think that's one of the major mistakes I made in deciding to marry the person who became my ex.  I could certainly predict that he would never leave me, and in the end I had to make him leave.

But where does this fear come from?  Tom Petty's song "Refugee" has always called to me, and I've always felt some kind of strange connection to broken situations and people.  Even my choice of career, prior to my current job, involved helping refugees and those in war-torn situations.  I felt comfortable working with broken people, empathizing with them and providing whatever support I could.  It helped me to avoid feeling my own brokenness.  By staying in that place, I coud triage and focus on immediate needs.  I even dated a couple of refugees, one of whom was my ex.  (He wasn't technically a refugee, but his parents did have to flee their home country because they were being persecuted.) 

My fear comes from a lack of faith in myself.  But that's circular, isn't it?  I lack faith because I'm scared.  But I'm scared because I lack faith.  It's taken a lot of strength over the years to get past that fear, and many times I have.  But I still feel like I've built walls around my heart....so I'm broken.  If only there were a Harry Potter spell to make the walls disappear.  (I'm tempted to do some kind of Ronald Reagan metaphor here, but best not to.)  Maybe I can reimagine the walls.  I can imagine them as melting, or imagine them as retractable and more porous.  Who knows...  The thing is, that according to Brene Brown we need to be vulnerable, and to be vulnerable means to put oneself at risk of getting hurt.  In the words of Lawrence of Arabia, the trick is not to mind that it hurts.  But I'm so panicked and anxious that I twist things every which way to avoid feeling hurt.  And in doing that, it becomes very hard for me to just let things happen. 

Take CG, for example.  I think things are actually happening, since I have little control over them.  I'm clearly not getting what I need.  He's just not there, and in a way I feel like a fool for hanging on for so long.  He's clearly not wrapped up in me.  But there's something in me that's using my brokenness as an excuse to do nothing.  It allows me to be a victim of my own life, rather than taking responsibility for successes and failures.  It's so clear to me what I should do.  Break up with CG.  (Or should I?  Should I stay cool?  Or am I acting like a fool?  [Sorry...channeling Grease there for a moment.]  Are we even still going out?  Why do I even need to ask this?  [Oops, caught me berating myself right there.])  I should keep trying to date, maintain a healthy attitude, and tell myself that I deserve someone healthy, who isn't checked out.  It's not easy.  I have to take it day by day, nurse my poor aching heart, and stay committed to myself and my life. 

I was hoping to have a more upbeat ending to this posting.  Maybe I'm just anxious because I'm going to try to call CG later tonight.  I'm trying to convince myself that I'm enough as I am, that even though I'm anxious and I hurt I'm a good, worthwhile person and I deserve a healthy, supportive relationship.  My cousin's wife in Atlanta says I should write the following over and over -- Only I can validate myself.  Only I can validate myself.  Only I can validate myself.  I think she's a little young to have been influenced by The Shining, or she may not have suggested doing something like that.  In any case, I know I deserve love, including (or perhaps starting with) my own.  But more on that another time. 

I know that rather than remaining in the harbor, being afraid of the sea, I have to dive in and trust it to hold me up.  I need to realize I'm going to be tossed around by the waves, but I'll also be able to surf and float and look up gratefully at the stars.  And I won't be alone out there, even if it feels like it sometimes.  People will help pull me up.  I'm there already...but clinging onto the pilings of a rotting dock, afraid to let go.  I know I'm getting there.  I just have to open my hands and let myself be borne out into the phosphorescent current.