Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Be Selfish

Yesterday I did the dumbest, bravest, most painful and wisest thing I've had to do: I said no to something I really wanted, but couldn't keep...and then proceeded to get drunk off my ass. Seriously; there was Epsom salt on my spice rack when I woke up this morning. But, the drunken blog is next - I digress.

So the story goes, a big-hearted girl with stars in her eyes finds comfort in a sweet, kind friend after admittedly the hardest year of her life. And he stays around for it all; her stress and worry, her doubts and fears, as well as her triumphs and joys and little victories. He makes her laugh when she wants to cry, he encourages her to do the best she can. He tells her she's beautiful so much, she actually starts to believe it.

Attraction builds, and is mutual, but homie doesn't want a relationship - just a little friendly fuckin. Our sweet, naive heroine believes she can do non-committed sex even though she knows (and he knows, and everybody nose) that that isn't what she needs or deserves.

Y'all know how the story ends. Hell, some of you are or have been the heroine in the same story; she succumbs to the moment and ends up hurting more than she thought possible, with nobody to blame but herself. She settles, because deep down she doesn't think she deserves more. She thinks that she asks for too much; surely if she were worth it, if she were everything the men of her past said she was, they would stay - they would want all of her, not just pieces. If she were worth anything, they'd be with her, they'd love her the way she needs them to.

Besides, she's done it before, quite a few times. She gives all of herself, everything, to people who wouldn't and couldn't give her what she needed with the same intensity. She's naturally selfless, this heroine, and always pays the price for it, bruising and cutting up her heart with her feelings of inadequacy and self-loathing. But this guy cares about her; maybe he'd change his mind and want more. Maybe if she went through with it she would change and become the type of strong, confident brassy broad who can have sex with no expectations happily.

But she...I am not that kind of girl. I may not always feel worth it, and I may still cry my heart out some days wondering why nobody wants me. But I can't do that to myself again. I can't set myself up for that kind of fuck over. I have to look out for me, and know and respect myself enough to say what I want, and when enough is enough. I'm a chick who needs commitment. Opened and closed case.

So as shitty as I feel for backing out, and not getting what I want, I told my friend, whom I adore, that sex couldn't happen without commitment. He knows me, better than most people in fact, so he knows why, but I know he's disappointed, and I understand that. What I hope he understands is that it was hard as hell to stand up for myself in this way. I hope he knows that he's still one of my best friends on Earth. More than anything, I hope he knows that this change, this tentative assertion of my worth and confidence, wouldn't have been possible without him. And if he ever changes his mind...

Being selfish and changing the narrative is hard, but needed. If you won't and don't care for yourself enough to not willingly go into something that'll hurt you, how can you expect anyone else to care enough not to hurt you?

Am I disappointed? Have you ever returned a box of unused, pristine, damn-near-no-finger-prints-on-the-box condoms? That kinda frustration is enough to make a woman cry. But..I'm still proud. A little bruised up about it, but not as much as I would've been had I laid down some A+ Circle Swirl for so little in return. I'm not only proud, I'm glad I was able to change my story.