Me with me

I usually like to introduce these conversations with how I know the person I'm speaking with and how long I've known him/her. I guess since I am forty years old, the easiest thing would be to say that I've known me for forty years. I don't know how true that is though. Because every year I know me new. Or is it newly?

* You know the drill, no, the routine. What memory comes up first?

J* Me as a little girl. The neighbor's tent next door. Next door on Cameron Street where I grew up. I don't wanna go into the story but that's the memory that comes up first. Maybe because it was that incident that had so much to do with how I guard myself so much. Maybe.

* Say more about you guarding yourself.

J* Ummm, mostly in relationships I guess. It's very natural for me to take on the role of cheerleader, encourager, lifter of spirits, wind beneath his wing...

* How does that describe how you guard yourself?

J* Well, I generally go above and beyond the call of girlfriend duty for men I know in three lifetimes wouldn't do the same for me. It's a perfect set up. I give and expect at least the same level of respect and am disappointed when I don't get it in return. Disappointed, but really there's no other way for it to turn out. The relationship ends and each failed relationship is validation that it's crazy to give so much. And then the next guy shows up and there is something about his potential I start rooting for. And the cycle continues. And each time I wrap myself in a new hard layer of I told you so don't do this again. But to my...credit I keep bouncing back.

* You make it sound like giving and rooting are bad things.

J* They are not bad things. In romantic relationships I just seem to give them to people who don't cherish them. Didn't really ask for them in the first place.

* Awww, poor you.

---We laugh.

* Well, if I can talk straight, it doesn't seem like it's them. I think it's you.

J* Yeah?

* You said yourself that the cycle continues. You must know the end before it begins. Right?

J* I do. Yet I'm somehow surprised each time.

---We laugh again. But we know it's not funny.

* So what, if anything, are you doing to break the cycle?

J* I shut down sometimes and wonder why I haven't gotten a grip on this whole love thing by now.

* As if any of us have.

J* Well, in my mind, by forty, it should be handled.

* As if life has ever followed any shoulds. But answer the question. What, if anything, are you doing to change this cycle?

J* Reconnecting myself to Myself.

* That's a great title for a book, but what does it mean?

J* I'm listening. I'm trusting. Everytime I have ever done anything there has always been a small voice that said yes or no. I know the voice. It's never lead me wrong. Too many times I didn't listen though.

* But it sounds like you've had this tragic life of horrible relationships and you haven't.

J* No. I haven't. I just learned too many lessons the hard way. And I didn't have to. But again, no. They haven't been horrible relationships and I've learned and taught lessons in each one. I spent too much time fixing and helping.

* What's wrong with that?

J* Nothing was broken. I didn't love and honor myself enough to know that I had more to offer than my help, than my fixing. My image of myself was that that's why someone would like me. I know I sound like a little girl, but we're talking about love here. Here, where we're all fifth grade boys and girls.

* And now?

J* Now I know better.