I almost wrote a note to someone saying, ‘I have abandonment issues, they belong to me and are not your fault, heads up buttercup’.
Only one piece of that sentence is the truth.
Once upon a time in a strip club VIP far, far away I had a regular. His name was J__. Every Friday we would sit at the bar and chat for an hour or so then he would politely ask me if I would dance for him. Once a month he bought me new shoes. He liked shoes.
He told good stories, had cool hobbies and was just a good guy. His wife had passed away and he didn’t want to remarry but needed a woman to talk to and company. I had no idea how rare he was until years later. They don’t make a lot of men like him, and they rarely walk into strip clubs.
We had been hanging out for 6 months or so, long enough that one night, I had a little too much to drink and I spilled my guts about something or other. I cried. I am a crier. Not usually at work, but bits of me can’t help but leak out now and again.
I signaled the bartender for another drink, J__ handed me some napkins and said “Wait”. I pouted for second, I really wanted another drink, I was embarrassed and wanted to pour some more vodka on my feelings.
He saw this.
“I have something I want to say to you and I need you to listen”.
I acquiesced.
“Lili” (my stripper name was Lili) “You are carrying around a world of hurt. Every once in a while you need to take a look at that baggage you are carrying. Open it up and really look at it and I will tell you something. So much of that shit isn’t even yours.”
I didn’t understand and said so.
“People do shitty shit to each other, when someone treats you badly it’s not your fault, it’s theirs”.
He changed my life.
This past year has been filled with men who have come into my life and then vanished. And not a good poof. No explanation, no goodbye, what the fuck.
So my abandonment issues are justified right?
Wrong.
This is not actually my problem.
It’s none of my business really.
BBP says ‘when someone lies to you under the guise of protecting your feelings…they aren’t protecting you at all. They are protecting themselves from your reaction.’
I am going to extrapolate here (it’s a thing I do) and say the same thing goes for these shitty magicians I have been dating. Poof.
I do not abandon anyone. In fact I hang on way to long, I am a lady-in-fucking-waiting.
(I really have to knock that off, I’d much rather go back to being Lady Luck)
I know how to own my shit, not lie, tell the truth even when it sucks and I know how to say goodbye.
I am kind. It hurts me to hurt others, but I am hyper-aware of how much more it hurts to let shit linger and fester.
I am a culmination of my own actions, not a result of how others have chosen to treat me.
As long as I can sit back at the end and know I did my best, then I am alright.
I don’t have abandonment issues. I have reckless wanton abandon when it comes to sex.
And that is not an issue that is a gift from god to get lost so completely in something so spectacular.
