Work-in-Progress

I am a work-in-progress. There's nothing at all complete or finished or polished about me. I say the wrong things at the wrong times, I stay out too late, I don't get enough sleep, I can be unbelievably crass and at other times inexcusably thoughtless. I let go too easily, or else I hang on too long.

Most notably, I make the same mistakes, over and over and over again. Each time, it feels like a new mistake. But it's not. It's the same one, dressed up in new packaging so my poor pathetic and remarkably insecure head can fool itself into thinking that it's not about to do a real number on my long-suffering heart, who always seems to bear the brunt of these mistakes I make.

(If my body parts were relationship archetypes, my head would be the wife beater and my heart the battered wife. Right down to my head always telling my heart, "This is your fault. You deserve this." No joke. Ha.)

But I do. I make the same mistake, time and time again. I think that if I care enough, someone will care about me. I think that if I can just give enough, I'll get something back. In a far less positive light, you might say that I have a tendency to attach to anyone that shows me the least affection. God knows why, but I seem to be starved for attention. I just want someone to notice me, care, and continue to do so in perpetuity.

Isn't that what love is?

But this is not about love. I don't want to talk about love. Talking about love is like dancing about architecture.

This is about my eager-puppy syndrome, the one that keeps coming back after it's been kicked. This is about my attention-whorish bids for attention when I'm feeling down. This is about the fact that I seem to have no boundaries. I will give anyone whatever they ask of me, if they just hint that they might, at some point, maybe, in the future, reciprocate.

That's just bad business sense, right there. Can you believe I work in accounting? I can't. It's a good thing I don't set policy, just balance accounts. We'd be bankrupt.

I am bankrupt. I've given away so much for nothing but IOU's that turned out to be not worth the ink they were written with. I've given away huge chunks of my heart, of my self-respect, of my energy. And I don't really have enough left any more to cover my responsibilities. I am emotionally bankrupt. Also exhausted.

But how does one unlearn the behavior patterns of a lifetime? I don't even know where they come from; I got plenty of love and affection and attention as a child. I was not an abused youth.

How do I unlearn this impulse to give and give and give and hope that someday it'll come back to me? How do I forget everything I believe about karma and do unto others? And do I really want to?

No.

Why don't the rest of you join my world. Because, while I may be occasionally needy and while I may be occasionally childish and while I may occasionally display a level of immaturity that shocks the senses, we would all be much better off if we all gave instead of taking, if we all sometimes or even often did things without having a firm expectation of reciprocation in mind.

A little naivete goes a long way towards making the world better.