Touch wood & don't step on the cracks...

I have developed quite a fear of acknowledging that I am happy, because whether it is my subconscious sabotaging me, or karma, or who knows what..? Every time I do it, it screws up, almost immediately... it seems so tenuous.

Case in point... last time I wrote about how happy I was before a week-end away with J, leaving on that Friday. It didn't end up at all as I had expected, even though we did have a good time, I noticed a distance in him, and I felt rather avoided at times. It signaled the beginning of the end of that... and brought much heart ache and angst and tears for me. It took me about 6 weeks to really accept the fact the he 'just wasn't that into me', even though I had really fallen deeply for him and with complete abandon - which I had thought was reciprocated.

I had to deal with it, toughen myself up again and move forward. But it took me much longer than I expected and for a few months after I held on to a small hope that we'd actually get back together.

Suddenly one day I realised I had stopped looking at his face book updates, and thinking about him, and wanting to speak to him, and having my heart stop if I saw an email from him - holding my breath when opening it, just in case... When my mom died, and I was bombarded with (mostly very much appreciated) phone calls, to the point of saturation. And when he called I actually decided not to answer. That was the moment I knew I was over him. I no longer needed him, and in that moment I didn't want him either.

We are still friends - I think - and I'd like to still see him in future, but he is no longer an emotional attachment for me. He is a friend now.

I have avoided forming emotional attachments since then. I hadn't wanted to. A is sweet, and kind, and caring, and good, and clever. But I did not want to get emotionally intense. I held back, I fought it, I resisted, I was fierce about being independent. I wanted space, distance and autonomy. I knew I couldn't feel deeply. I knew I wasn't going to let myself get attached. I don't know why, but I know I had barriers. It may have been largely because of the experience with J, and because I was still processing that...

So when I got to the point of deciding I actually didn't need, and moreover even really WANT anyone in my life, I felt pretty liberated, free and relieved. I was reveling in my aloneness and ability to do as I please when I please. To take long baths, listen to my music as loud as I like, stretch across my bed and watch crap on my laptop, in bed, as late as I liked. I was content and fulfilled. By myself...

So no one was more surprised than me, when out of the blue and seeming out of the sky, C appeared and literally just happened into my life... he says he'd seen me running several times before, and on the day we met he'd seen me running and the boys were cycling behind me. He has been close yet far for a year or so, and we have worked out that we must have almost met about a dozen times. But didn't until then...

I am still full of barriers, barricades and fears. I am still not able to really trust, or believe, or feel unconditional. I am no longer capable of wild abandon. But I am hoping I'll be able to learn. And I am hoping if I say it quietly it will be ok...

But I feel a bit of happiness creeping in...