Learning to Feel Again

Personal experience.

For the longest time, I shut myself out. I treated my heart and my emotions similar to the way Rapunzel was managed by her parents. I took a beautiful object, and I found the ultimate protection. I stowed it away. I built up a tower, where I hid the very few, small, delicate remnants that were left from my once passionately full, blood-pumping organ.

Yesterday [June 4th, 2014] marks an anniversary of the day I chose to shield my most prized possession"four and a half years ago. FOUR YEARS AND A HALF YEARS. That’s 1,642.5 days.

 

For those 1,642.5 days, I allowed myself to forget. I allowed myself to forget what it feels like to give someone absolutely everything you have"to feel that perfect combination of vulnerability and security. I allowed myself to forget how comforting it is to fall asleep next to someone you love"totally wrapped up in his or her arms and consumed by their heartbeat. I allowed myself to forget how to feel. More importantly, I allowed myself to forget how to love.

 

The walls that I built around my emotional capacity were so strong, that I was rarely fazed by anything. I had starved myself from emotional contact for so long, that I had lost one of the most important and powerful characteristics that seems to define humanity: empathy. I wouldn’t allow myself to understand or access my own emotions"let alone anyone else’s. I was the girl that chose to push all feelings aside"past, present and even those potential in the future.

 

Emotionally, I was dead. I became a hard-core commitment phobe. I vowed that I would NEVER say the “L” word again. Every guy that came around, I pushed aside. I barely gave anyone the time of day. I would allow myself to invest in small, two-week relationships just for the hell of it, at the expense of others. I felt nothing.

 

When I least expected it, you came along. You popped into my life, and for some reason, you were different. I didn’t know it at the time, and I didn’t know how or why, but somehow, you left an impression. At first, I ran the opposite way"straight back to those two-week romances that lacked everything. I did this because I was scared. I was scared and I was selfish. I could tell there was something different about you, but like I had done for so long, I chose to ignore it. For that, I am so sorry.

 

Then, after that two-week escapade, you came back. I don’t know whether it was by chance, fate, the will of God, or just the kindness in your heart, but you did. You came back, and you chose to give me another chance. You chose to stay. Somehow you managed to find the crack in the walls of that tower that I had built 1,642.5 days ago. You took a hammer and a chisel, and carefully broke away that stupid f*****g tower piece by piece. Because of you, I was slowly able to rediscover myself. I am slowly learning what it’s like to feel again"and remember what it’s like to love.

 

You always ask me why you’re so important to me or why I feel so strongly about you, and now I know. You are SO important, because you came along and changed me. You made the effort that I expected no one to make, and you accomplished what I deemed impossible"you took those very few, small, delicate remnants left of my heart and carefully pieced them back together. Regardless of how long this lasts, you have changed me for the better, and for that, I am forever grateful. I found the ability to love again. I found this yesterday, after 1642.5 days, sitting on a wooden swing while looking out on a peaceful lake. I rediscovered myself with you right next to me.