if you had asked me a year ago, maybe even 6 months ago what song would have described my life up until that point I would have said I didn't know. The truth is, the song that would have most closely related to my life would have been Here I Go Again by White Snake. Let me explain…
For most of my adult life, I have lived as a recluse, mostly as the least extreme meaning of the word. I consider myself an emotional hermit. Scratch that, I would have considered myself one. That is slowly changing. I have typically kept to myself; and wouldn't let people in, keeping them at a safe distance – I wouldn't get real with them. I was great at entering other people's lives and getting to know them – what made them tick, their hopes, joys, fear and so on. But, if they tried to get into my life I would politely shut them out. Whether that meant ending the conversation or pushing the convo back onto them I did whatever it took to not talk about me.
And most of the time it worked – I've learned that people a) love talking about themselves and b) are easily distracted (especially if you ignore their question long enough or ask them the same question back). It's amazing how, if given the opportunity, people will go on and on about who they are, what made them that way, what they're struggling with, what their hopes and goals are and pretty much anything else you want to know. Just ask them questions. And believe me when I say I am the queen of question asking. But, that left me in quite a pickle. And wondering why I wasn't like that.
Part of it was the fact that I didn't believe I had anything to offer other than my heart. Which, although it sounds like the greatest thing I could offer, I never felt like it was enough. I wasn't pretty, wasn't funny, wasn't smart, didn't live an interesting life, et cetera. It got worse the last few years to the point where I wouldn't initiate conversation with new people, I wouldn't arrive late to somewhere, I would wait for those I knew to start a conversation with me or ask about me and, if they did I would turn it back around on them. If they didn't ask about me, it continued to perpetuated the lie that I wasn't "good enough" to be pursued or known.
My life became a self-fulfilling prophesy
Now I've come to the point where I know in my head that I do have things to offer. But, even though I have freedom from that lie, it's still a struggle to open up, to share my feelings, emotions, thoughts and so on. I fight for it every time someone asks me something about myself. I have to remind myself, and take to heart when people tell me, they want to know what I'm thinking or what my dreams are, what my fears and hopes are. It's hard to do a 180 so fast when this has been so ingrained in who I am. And, I'm realizing that because I shut down that part of who I should be, I have a hard time training my mind and heart to retain information like that. Because I've closed off the emotional part of myself, I have a hard time ascribing emotion in different situations, which in turn makes it difficult to pull those up later in my memories. Which is whyI believe I don't have "favorites" of things like movies, books, or very many memories of growing up. I don't know if that makes any sense to you.
I know I am not an emotional recluse. I have family that surrounds me, friends that do want to know me, and situations that encourage force me to feel. I have come to a place in life where I understand that I don't have to live out of my insecurities but I do need to live out of my IDENTITY as a daughter of Christ, who chose me, formed me, knew me, and loved me even before I was alive. He created me. He loves me. He wants me to grow, to change, to live. To love.
I don't know where I'm goin
But I sure know where I've been
Hanging on the promises in songs of yesterday.
An' I've made up my mind, I ain't wasting no more time
But here I go again, here I go again.
Tho' I keep searching for an answer
I never seem to find what I'm looking for.
Oh Lord, I pray you give me strength to carry on
'Cause I know what it means to walk along the lonely street of dreams.
Here I go again on my own
Goin' down the only road I've ever known.
Like a drifter I was born to walk alone.
An' I've made up my mind, I ain't wasting no more time.
I'm not a drifter anymore. I don't walk alone.
