not the same

Not at all. I used to be very comfortable with reaching people through friendship. It was simple. You say something to me, I say something back. I knew that I was charming, and funny and quick with puns and facts, figures and history.It was a no brainer. I even used to say, getting to know someone, meeting someone and disarming them was not ever a problem for me, it was what to do after that? It was a good way to be myself, to get what to me was fundamental about any relationship, and that was and has always been to establish friendship. It is honest, natural and right in my mind. I cannot imagine not being that way. Yet, now, I see a part of it as actually limiting me. I see that in its innocence, I also did something instinctive that had an underlying heaviness to it. While I was getting to establishing friendship, I was also judging and layering the information in categories, assessing the person for similar and dis-similar traits. I was being clinical. I was determining worthiness, longevity, future challenges. In a way, I was being overly analytical, not 'personable' at the end of the day, and ultimately not able to even be myself. How could I be, if I had my guard up even when I thought that conversation came so lightly, and smiling, laughing and exchange was actually more loaded than I acknowledged? Now, I am not condemning myself for this. I enjoyed doing this for years. I probably would not have been any the wiser that I had this tendency until this very entry, this very year. The things that I am observing now in this new situation have changed everything. I stand in wonderment at myself. I see myself, and I have so much to say about that. I see myself looking at myself observing myself. My new thing now is to listen to what I do to claim that this is what I say I want, against what I feel, emote, and really do. I see now how much I molded and re-shaped what I received from people who came into my life with their own issues and met me with mine. I think the first time that I suddenly challenged my way of seeing this was with The Towers. I'd done this with my ex-husband too, but he completes the illusion so well that it was like watching a shadow for a second come into perspective, so no, I never took the musing further. The Towers did it, when I implanted a thought into his mind about something that I wanted him to do, and when we met again, he not only did it, he stated it as though it were his idea. I noted it in my mind when it happened, and I wondered about the power of it and decided not to abuse the ability. But, I didn't do it to see if he would take the instruction, I did it to see something else. I was curious about the fact that I could be talking to him so very well, for hours in fact and then, suddenly I might say one small thing and upset him severely. I didn't understand where his insecurity was coming from? I concluded that there was my behavior, his behavior but also his expectations that came into question, because the angst never felt as though I did anything, it seemed to come from something I unwittingly triggered in him. .......... Now, I see how much I can write all of those entries about what I desire in a partner and meet that person and not be ready in the least for what I say I want. I see every day in friends, family and strangers everyone struggling with their emotions in some way. .......... What has been amazing this year is how much I realize I must let go to be able to see that I hold nothing to begin with. Having the feelings that I do now, I can't go back. My old playbook is burned. My comfort zone has evaporated. I am exposed. I have to take everything one step at a time. This isn't that love that is addictive. I am not to stock up on joy juice. It just didn't work out like that, and it nearly did. I could have rode that horse with ease. But I am not meant to this time. This isn't same old, same old. No sir. This time I have to say loud and proud that this is what I desire. This is what I will work for. This is what I am working on. In a way, I am loving myself so hard! Lol. Everything I think I am feeling and maneuvering or whatever I am being cute with, I see it as me embodying myself.I don't know what other way to describe this feeling. There is so much room for me to see. I am not distracted at all. This is all that I can manage tonight. I have so much more to write. But this is it for now.