For the longest time in my life, I was building walls around my heart. It feels safer to keep myself inside instead of risking my heart. But after a long long long time, I’ve finally learnt to love. (Danke, V) I’ve learnt to tear the damn walls down and let love in. Almost 20 years of building walls, and finally tearing them down. That was the best thing that has happened to me. To love, feel love and be loved in return.

But lately, I’m starting to note that my walls are being built again. I’m struggling between <being ready for a relationship and let love in again> VS <having my walls built up again because I’m afraid of being hurt>. And I suspect that’s happening because I haven’t given myself proper closure with my thing with P. I’d like to think I did, but in reality, I know I’m too afraid to face it. I’m too afraid to listen to the truth.

That we get hurt and it is okay. We are here on earth to risk our hearts. It sucks so badly. But it is always worth it. We will heal. And the good days will come again. It wouldn’t hurt forever.

And the lazy way to is to build these fucking walls. I want to tear the walls down, so I have to face the reality that I’ve been avoiding.

Building Walls is Power

It turns out, P has had a greater impact on my faith in love than I realised. He made me lose my faith.

I saw how he built walls to prevent himself from getting hurt. I saw what I could have been, if I had not torn the walls down. On one hand, it is limiting one’s life experiences to not feel fully. On the other, I saw how he was completely unhurt by everything. It is very powerful to not get hurt. He did not spend the many months feeling sad and shitty. He just got up and carried on with his life.

Maybe it’s the anger of unfairness inside — why can he come out of this completely fine, whereas I have so much emotional collateral damage? It’s unfair. I feel like a fool for allowing myself to feel so much. I’ve spent so many nights crying, so many days wasted on daydreaming about the impossible “what if”s.

Dumb Thing I Did

I felt so angry that I never gave myself enough time to grieve. I was busy focusing on solutions. To building walls instead. Because it was just the safer option.

My solution was to allocate X-amount of time feeling sad. (I gave myself 1 month) And then move on. But I forgot to check if I am completely done and ready to move on. Perhaps I’m so tired of feeling hurt, I was not honest with myself. I want to end this asap. And I know the easiest way is to build walls. And gosh, have I been building walls unconsciously.

At first, it was alright. Honestly, it’s like having all the fun and not having to deal with the bad parts. I felt like I was turning into P, something that I’ve been spending too many years trying to move away from. I build walls because it is easier than risking my heart and be vulnerable with someone again.

I still feel emotions, love, care. But it’s not like the ones I had for E and V. It’s not even 1% of what I know true unconditional and real love is.

Too Afraid to Acknowledge

Some days, the “what if”s still pop up in my head with P. Did I do enough? What could I have done better? Maybe I was wrong? What I am too afraid to acknowledge is that he doesn’t want any of that. I guess I was really fucking dumb then. He has said so many times that he doesn’t want any of that. How fucking stupid of me to think that maybe I’m special and he might want that with me. He could change! I’m an idiot.

But that’s not the point. The point is that I’m an idiot for not wanting to acknowledge that. The fact that he has said over and over that he doesn’t want any of that.

The fact that his actions (and words) show that he doesn’t want any of that. The fact that he says he thinks a lot about his future and I am clearly not in it. The fact that he says/promises a lot, but never does any of them. The fact that he can’t make the decision just means it’s a no.

Tearing Walls

I was reflecting about something this weekend about vulnerability and walls. Something happened that made me think deeper into that. And that’s where I realised I have my walls up again.

I’m always authentic in showing myself, something I take pride in. But I only show people specific sides of me, not the whole 100%. And with that 5% that I only show to specific people, I realise I’ve started to build walls around it.

I don’t allow people in. I find all the reasons and faults to not let someone in. I stop trusting people. I lost my faith in love, in people and in the magic of the universe.

But I’m grateful that the universe has sent random people to check in on me and remind me of the few special people, worthy of witnessing that 5% of me. I’m slowing building up my believe in the magic of the universe again, in new people I meet.

As for love, I want to believe again. I truly deeply do. But my heart will have to take more time to believe in that again.

Closure

God, it took me 6 months to finally say it. I’m acknowledging that the thing with P doesn’t work. I’m acknowledging that my heart has been very hurt. I’m finally accepting the facts and moving on. Truly and deeply, from the center of my heart.

Because this thing with P is very different from the rest, I’m also having closures in different ways. For the rest, even if it’s just a summer love, we always opened our hearts and experience love fully. With P, it was one-sided, guarded and just different. Since I’ve never experienced that before, closure was so difficult. So I end up following methods online:

Delete everything. Well, we don’t have any pictures together anyway (I should have noticed this sign earlier), so that part is easy. I also deleted most messages except for like 10 that I starred.
I’ve also deleted the memories. I usually write them down in my journals, and have since deleted it.
And I finally deleted his number. I almost never ever do that. But hey, there is always a first time. I even deleted his emails.
Moving forward, I’m not going to initiate any contact anymore. It sucks because I learnt a lot from him. But considering that I’m always the one intiating contact, initiating to meet, even initiating to Zoom and he never does that, I should have seen the fucking signs. Oh well. I am acknowledging that I’m an idiot.

It sucks. They were all super hard to delete. It made me sad. There’s a sunk cost in these memories. But if this is the closure that I need, this is what I am doing to do. Now that I’m thinking about it, he didn’t give me any closure either. He just went on in his life. (And that’s fine. It’s his life and his decisions. It’s not my business to judge. I’m just envious that he could do that so easily. I wish I had the power.)

I’m an idiot. But I’m finally looking into my heart to find the closure I truly needed.

Bright side

Well this is not all sad and depressing. The bright side is that when things like these happen and alter my core beliefs, I know that I will always come up better on the other side. I know that because I’ve had many episodes of fundamental principles altering. The process of destruction and new creation is so uncomfortable. But I always come up better on the other side.

Ending Note to Lisa

Please always have faith in love, people and the universe. Please don’t build walls around your heart again. Please find every ounce of courage in your heart and love, love, love again.

Love is always worth it. I promise you!

Keep believing,
L