Real Intimacy Beings Here ~ Elephant Journal

I think in those first few months or year after coming out a long term relationship whether you were married or not, you’re just in shock and then survival mode. So although there are lots of tears, and an inordinate amount of deep-seated pain, we kind of glide through it all as if on a cloud…because the whole thing is pretty surreal.

By the second year, that cloud tends to dissipate and propel you flat on your ass from thousands of feet in the air.

When you hit the ground, you hit it hard.

Let me tell you, it hurts.

Up until that point, I had closed myself and my heart off into a tiny little box to protect it. There were men…quite a few, in fact, that came in and ultimately left because I was not in any position to give anything of myself.

The ones I did feel something for, I fought. I fought every vulnerable feeling that came up like I was battling a terminal disease, leaving them exasperated and finally resigned that I was not going to give in and allow myself to be loved.

I had done a whole lot of healing during those two years, but if I’m perfectly honest, I was totally over myself by that point. I was caught between the burning desire within me that was longing with such passion for real intimacy with a man and the complete terror of what would be required of me to have it.

Fear had me paralyzed. Normally strong, confident, sassy, self-assured Me was full of it—fear of being vulnerable, fear of allowing a man to know the real me, fear of being exposed that I wasn’t “enough.”

Let’s face it, I’m telling millions of other people’s stories here. So many of us are filled with fear. We’ve all been hurt before. Nobody has been immune from a broken heart. But we allow it to hold us back from real intimacy and connection with other people. We allow what’s happened in our past to completely void out the possibility of manifesting anything better for the future.