Starved for affection
‘There are thousands of children starving in Africa’. I was told this throughout my childhood, when I refused to eat dinner. How does my eating help those in need across the Atlantic? It doesn’t, it never did.
How about what I was starved for? It wasn’t food or love. I was told ‘I love you’ by my family every day. Affection, physically, that is a whole other story. My father worked all day weekdays and we rarely saw him. Even on weekends, he had other hobbies. I was raised in church, that god awful place, so we got to see him on Sundays. But he was an outdoorsy person and I hated the outdoors. My mother, on the other hand, well she was a deeply unhappy person. Struggled with depression and so gracefully handed it down to her daughters. We rarely saw her either, she slept her days away. Physical touch, that was rare. I grew up in a ‘loving home’, but the love wasn’t shown, only spoken.
So, i learned that physical touch was an option, not needed. Rarely wanted. It has really fucked up my adult life. Any relationship I’ve ever been in hasn’t been romantic in the slightest. Sex, well that’s what a man needs. It’s not affectionate, never will be. It is something to pacify those urges so they don’t look elsewhere. Me, a deeply sexual person now. It’s awful. It just feels wrong when I have urges for well, anything. I loathe being touched in any way, yet I crave it. I guess I feel the need to be touched. I just don’t trust anyone to touch me the right way.
If affection has never been shown to you, you learn to live without it.
I’m in love with the stars. With the moon. They make appearances in my writing more often than they should. There’s something so romantic about looking into the night sky. I suppose I am a romantic at heart, who knew?
What are you most afraid of?
There’s always those phobias of snakes, spiders and bodies of water . Those are pretty rational. I know way too many people that are scared of those. Spiders are creepy with all their legs. Snakes are venomous. People drown everyday in lakes and oceans.
My fears are the feelings. Being helpless. Not being able to express my emotions the right way, or worse, expressing them and not having someone feel the same way. The fear of being lonely for the rest of my life.
I am helpless in a lot of ways. I make myself small in my own life and don’t express the emotions I need to, every day. I am alone and very lonely.
I’m afraid that I will live my entire life, not being true to myself. Having to live and not be who I really am. I’ve been doing it for almost thirty one years now. As a child, I lived to please my parents. As a young adult, I lived to please my friends. Now, an actual adult, I live to please my husband.
I am afraid that if I truly show everyone who I am, they will run away. Or, maybe I am the one who needs to run away. But the fear of leaving is too powerful.
Everyone has fears, that’s just human nature. Maybe what I am afraid of is just being human.
I am afraid of myself.
I don't want to die today.
I'm usually contemplating my life, or lack of, through these hours.
Living is difficult most days.
Then you happened along, and reminded me there are still things to live for.
Your positivity is contagious.
I have a new disorder within me now, that illuminates the darkest parts of my mind.
The sunrise is beautiful again every morning.
Uneasiness that sends moths down my throat, have turned to butterflies.
I adore you.
I need to see the universe through your eyes, just once.
So I will have something to hold onto when the moon is high at night, and the darkness attempts to seduce me.
I will love you quietly. In my way. You are in my thoughts, and songs, and poetry. You are in my dreams night and day.
Humans are silly little things. They make up higher beings in their minds so that death doesn’t seem too scary in the end. It helps them go to sleep, dreaming that when they die they’ll have someplace else to go. Silly creatures they are, death is death. The end. Nothing comes after.
I don't feel like ME anymore. If there ever was such a thing to begin with..
Do you realize how difficult it is for me to put myself first? I have lived in the shadow of everyone I have ever been with. I have made myself smaller trying to fit in and be everything that they need, always.
Now, is the time for me. It took me thirty years to finally acknowledge this. I will lose people in doing so. I will have to put my own feelings ahead of everyone else.
Honestly, I don’t even know where to begin. How do I learn to not care about how I make everyone else feel? How do I do what I need to do to heal and become this better version of me? How do I even be me?
Who am I, really?
When I die,
Bury me in the forest.
There will be no need for visiting me.
I have found home with the foliage.
The shame of living will disappear as my body becomes the earth.
I read this quote once that said something along the lines of, "If we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ideal of being known".
Of the thousands of quotes I have saved across varying platforms of social medias, this quote has lived in my subconscious more than the rest.
We as humans have to have social interaction and through our interactions we search for love. Our greatest fear as a species is being alone and within that being lonely.
To not end up alone though, we have to put ourselves out there and open up and let people get the chance to know us. Opening up to let people see our true selves is possibly the most terrifying thing for a person to do. Here let me show you my demons and the things I struggle with on the daily and please, dear god love me for it?
How are we supposed to open up and let people see our inner desires and not have them run screaming because what they have seen doesn't line up with their struggles or beliefs?
Here are my demons, love me anyway.
You don't know this yet. You are my sunshine.
The smile I can feel from a whole country away, well it takes the breath out of me. You are beauty in the rawest form. Your eyes hold the earth, the soil and grass. I could get lost in them and not worry if I need to be found. I feel warmth getting to bask in your light. Your voice melts all the sorrows.
I am not one for words and ideas of affection, but when I feel the sun radiating everyday, you must be made aware.