Sabotage (And I ain't talkin Beasties)

Sabotage – A deliberate action aimed at weakening another entity through subversion, obstruction, disruption or destruction.

While I know this blog should be about my evening with George Strait and Martina McBride, I would like to wait until I give the disk of pictures to my Cousin tomorrow, before I post the good pics (She’s the one that treated me to the VIP show…OMG!). Instead it’s about sabotage.

I was talking with one of my BFFs. We’re two peas in a pod. Our lives pretty much parallel each others, so when we compare notes, we’re always learning and gleaning good info from each other. The only real difference between the two of us is our coloring. She has the same wickedly irreverent sense of humor that I do.

She was a little confused over her guy friends’ reaction to her texts, and it frustrated her. When we talked about it and she read the texts to me, a light bulb went off in my head. Ok, an atomic bomb went off in my head. He was displaying the same sort of behavior I do. He knows he feels something for her, but instead of exploring the feeling or letting it go further, he sabotages himself to give himself some space and time to deal with it (these two have had this back and forth relationship for a long time, so I know it isn’t because he doesn’t like her). I hate seeing my behavior reflected back at me in such blatant fashion.

There are many reasons I sabotage myself and my relationships. I would honestly have to say the biggest reason I do it is…FEAR! If I let someone in, and I let them get close to me, what if they hurt me? What if they use the things they know about me against me? What if they use what they know about me to make me feel small and weak? If you’ve never felt small and weak before, it is one of the most nakedly raw feelings you can have. It makes you feel exposed and unprotected. It makes you feel like an animal backed into a corner fighting for their life. So, when I meet someone that gives me the feeling that they could be substantial in my life, my “fight or flight” reaction kicks in. Since I usually don’t run from a fight (due to my childhood), I start swinging verbally, and while I can hear myself say these idiotic insipid comments, I have difficulty stopping myself. It’s usually enough to scare off someone, and they start running. When they don’t run, I get a little confused, and look for other opportunities to do any possibility of a relationship in. And then, when I’m by myself, I’m ranting out loud about what a frickin moron I am, and blah blah blah!

I have trust issues. I know this about myself. It never occurs to me that the other person may have those same issues (due to my narcissistic tendencies). It never occurs to me that maybe it took a lot for this person to invest the time to talk to me and get to know me. That doesn’t occur to me until after I’ve chased them off. Who knows what monumental damage I may have done to others in the past due to my own hang-ups and insecurities?

I am getting better at this, but I know that I have a long way to go. A lot of this has to do with my own issues of self worth and confidence. Because I know that I’m flawed I find it difficult to think that someone would see something in me worth pursuing. The funny thing is that I know that I can be fun to be around. I love to have a great time. I’m decent looking (sometimes better looking, sometimes worse) and my body is ok despite the scars I have due to my own body sabotage efforts (and I was quite successful at that for a long period of time). I think the best thing I can say is that you won’t be bored around me. Some days, my confidence is ON, and there’s no stopping whatever I have my heart set upon. Other days, I want to hide under my comforter and snuggle with my JazzyKat (not these days, cuz my kitty isn’t with me).

But I know that part of my MO is to try and detach, or break things off. I’ll write stupid texts to make you feel that maybe you don’t mean as much to me as you think you do. Maybe the time we spent together didn’t move me like it moved you. Even better, I’ll give you the door and open it and tell you “Here’s the exit Buddy, don’t let the door smack your ass on the way out”. And I give you more than one opportunity to walk. I don’t want to tell you how I feel and that I think about you or the time we spent together. That maybe I replay certain scenes in my mind because I really felt alive at that moment. What, you want me to expose my soul??? REALLY?

But I am learning more and more that if I’m truly a risk taker, than I have to take a risk and expose my heart and feelings too and not sabotage myself. It isn’t as if I haven’t been hurt before, and I know that I’ll be hurt again. But if I don’t take the risk, I won’t win the prize and I won’t truly be alive either. After my Nephew died, I promised him and myself that I would truly LIVE the rest of my life. Dying at 20 is heart wrenching, but this kid truly lived the 20 years he had. He packed a lot of experiences into his short life. I need to pack as much as I can into what I have left, or I do not deserve this gift I’ve been given.