Epiphany: I Just Want To Be Enlightened Like Everyone Else

In had an epiphany the other day regarding my relationship to love. It crashed upon me so violently a tear escaped my eye. When I think  of love, I feel want, and if I'm honest with myself, I'm afraid of having it. There is this fear in the shape of a chain wrapped 'round my ankle. I attempt to walk toward love, but I find that I can't move. I look down and there it is--holding me back, tying me down, anchoring me in place. I can't move. But I want to.

I recall that afternoon when I was 11 years old, where I first felt the sting of rejection--the rejection of love or what I thought was love. I stood in the doorway of the kitchen, naked, with all my tenderness and innocence exposed. I stood there wanting him to want me again, to look at me. Just ten minutes earlier he had me crushed underneath him, and I couldn't breath. But he had wanted me. He was loving me. I was so vulnerable, but I didn't know how vulnerable I was.

I stood there at the doorway, not realizing my nakedness.
"Do you want to use the vibrator? I know where it is!"
"No, I'm done." He dismissed me without looking up from his bowl of Campbell's chicken noodle soup.
I stood there at the doorway, unaware of my nakedness.

If I'm honest with myself, that moment is a defining one for me. It is a marker for so many choices I've made up-til-now. So often in my life I've been left feeling tricked. I'll open myself up only to be dismissed. "I'm done with you." If I'm honest with myself, I'm afraid of love. I'm afraid it will hurt. I pretend I'm not afraid. But I am.

The character, Stella Dallas comes to mind at different times in my life. Stella stands on the street, looking through the window as her daughter marries. She was not invited. Stella cannot seem to grasp love. It is not within her reach. She's on the outside looking in. She is left wanting, yearning, needing.

If I'm honest with myself, I've spent many moons pretending to forgive, pretending to move on, pretending to understand the "why." And I have a feeling that if I just admit to how truly lost and hurt and angry and afraid I am, I can finally heal.

There is no one here to reject me or love me... The epiphany that shocked me to life the other day is the realization that I'm afraid that love hurts, so I'm certain that I energically keep it-love-away; even though I actively share it and open myself to it. Intellectually I understand this. But I just want to be enlightened like everyone else. However, I suppose one cannot skip grades. And love doesn't hurt, does it.