A Bushel and a Peck

Note to self: You have to take a few train rides into Crazy Town to learn the hard lessons. You have to. But you get to decide how much you want to learn from each trip and how soon you'll leave. You get to decide if you'll ride all the way to Main and Center or if you'll stop before you get to downtown and observe what you can without putting yourself in mortal danger. At some point, you'll have learned enough from these trips to Crazy Town that you'll know how to let go of your own crazy and be healthy, emotionally mature, and just...solid. You can hand in your lifetime pass to Crazy Town, smile at the person in the ticket booth, and say, "I'm moving far away and I won't be coming back. Thanks for everything!" And they'll watch you walk away as they grip your worn and tattered pass, bewildered and envious. And you'll ride off into the sunset with your tiny handful of people who have also handed in their lifetime passes. Crazy Town...

Why is the prospect of letting someone love me so terrifying? Because I still believe, at some deep, subconscious level, that I don't deserve it. I see what a mess my life is, I even see the progress I'm making, I even see glimpses of strong me (the me I'm capable of being 90% or more of the time someday), and I am deeply afraid that I am unlovable. Because if I let someone love me, I let them talk me into thinking that all of my mess is secondary to some magical force within me that is lovable. I start to believe that I am lovable despite my mess. But what happens if, at some future point, that person I let love me decides that my mess is too much after all? And they can't handle it and decide that my original assessment of my own unlovability was accurate? It breaks me. It broke me in so many ways, so many times, over the course of my life. I'm afraid to let someone talk me into believing that I'm lovable in spite of my mess. I'm afraid to trust some...