Fear
My memories of him are dappled in sunshine and washed in red wine. They are bright things in fun places. They are exciting. When I look back over them, I already know what a life with him would be like. I know the challenges and I know the rewards. He offers me no less than everything.
Down another path I can’t see clearly. No memories are made yet. There are whispered talks of what could be, what would be. There are offers to make these things happen. But I linger slightly behind them, afraid.
I’m not afraid to be alone. That is no longer the fear that drives my decisions. I can see a future on my own too. I see it full of friends and family. I see building a life I want on my own. This doesn’t scare me.
But I am not without fear. These days the fear that drives me is the fear of making another mistake. The fear of picking one path or the other and finding, several years down the road, that I made a bad choice. The fear of getting so far in that I don’t know how to get out again. The fear of getting divorced again. The fear of screwing up.
This is the fear that paralyzes me. I stand at this fork in the road and I’m simply frozen. I know the fear itself is keeping me from letting go. I know it will take away my chances to be happy with someone else. This fear will lead to me being alone every time. Not just here and now, but always.
And I have no idea how to let it go.
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i do not envy your decisions ahead. taking a chance on the unknown is very scary when the known is there before you too. ugh. not an easy task.
The worst bit is that I don’t know that I should take a chance at all. With anyone. I’m just confused.
Taking the chance & letting yourself become vulnerable will be worth it when it’s done with the right guy.
Easier said than done, right? I can’t even take my own advice yet…
And which one is right? Or neither? Or could both be in their own way? See the dilemma?
What kept going through my mind as I read was:
“Stay in the moment.”
It’s all that we have control of, if we do at all.
In this moment, I still don’t know what to do.
Have you ever thought maybe you are overthinking it?
Are you saying you see a simple answer? Share!
I feel your pain, sister.
I’ve decided to live for today, and just take it as it comes. :/
Even living for today, I have to resolve this.
I know all too well of the fear that you speak, as well as those damn crossroads.
But I have learned and I truly believe that those people that we allow into our lives, as well as those that come and go, are all a reflection of ourselves, in some way. They are there to show us something about ourselves. I also believe we make the mistakes we do, because we were meant to learn something from them. So in essence, there really is no mistake.
So whichever step you choose to make, or not make, you were really meant to make all along, to discover whatever it is, good or bad. But either way, you are growing into a better you.
Best Wishes
This is a wonderful way to look at things. If nothing else I will use it to try to accept my past as simply where I came from instead of a pile of regret.
You know this decision has to be made. You need to figure out what you need in your life now and not worry about a year from now. If you make a decision logically and rationally you won’t regret it in the future because you did what was right for who your are right now.
Sound familiar? You’ve been saying that to me for over two years and as of last week you still were. Maybe the words you used were different but the sentiment was the same. I knew I should have saved all those texts and IMs.
Think of it like this if you have to: If you hated your job and you got an offer for something better then your old job counters you with more money and the promise that things will improve, do you just take the money and stay where you are and hope that they weren’t just saying things would get better to keep you, or do you say “Thanks, but no thanks” and remember why you wanted to leave the old job in the first place.
In that scenario, I don’t know which choice was the old job and which was the new. In my head it started one way and then kept switching back and forth.
You need to take time and really think about what you want in your life. Put down the phone and the computer and spend a weekend alone and figure out what would make you happy now.
You’re objective and you can’t even figure it out! I’m just sayin’.
I’m probably wrong, but I would think that the only people who can help you solve this are the two men in your life. We can all care about you and support you, but that’s not enough.
If I were in your shoes (which frankly I can’t imagine -I’m too deeply steeped in aloneness to imagine your choice) I’d want to see how each guy responded to my fear, how open they were to helping me work through it. I say this mainly because I know that even after I made a choice I’d be working through some pretty heavy emotional baggage (fear of failure doesn’t just go away once a choice is made).
Good luck, darling.
Well thank you. I have discussed this with both of them to a degree. Their reactions are as different as they are, but neither is bad. I just need to make a choice and jump into it with both feet.
Here goes the cockeyed, never married optimist, but I think you can choose to make it work with either of them if that’s what you really want.
How do you not think about what might have been, though? Force of will, I guess, and faith that whichever decision you make will be the right one for you, because you say so.
You do get me. The “what might have beens” haunt me too.
I just stumbled on your blog and am very very impressed with your writing. It’s beautiful.
I’ve been reading a lot of your entries, including the ones about Mr. Big.
He sounds a lot like one (or actually, MANY) people I’ve gotten entangled with, and still pine for, sadly. I don’t mean to sound this note, but … maybe he came back to win you over because he was jealous of you and LC?
Either way, if he did do that for that reason, I still hope that he “learned” his lesson and realized who he “almost” let get away.
Warmest regards.
Well thanks for reading and I’m glad to have you. Actually Big didn’t know about LC until he had already come back and confessed how he felt. Otherwise I’d believe the same.
Ditto.
For both our sakes, I hope we find better ways to handle it.