I've had people tell me over the years I'm a hard man to be friends with. That I keep people at arm's reach as much as I can and hold myself to different standards than I'd want anyone else to try and aspire to.
Thursday night I had a long talk with a friend after setting her new computer up. It wasn't a talk we'd planned to have and it went on for literally hours, but I think it was one we both needed to have.
One of the many things she said which stuck out was this:
"I know you try to hide the fact that there is a scared and angry little boy inside you who got hurt a long time ago, and he's walked a road that very few of us will ever really understand. You need to know that there are people who care about and love him, because he deserves it."
I would like to think I'm capable of doing that, but it's not easy. It never really has been.
Compliments, platitudes and affections are things I enjoy giving other people, but I don't take them very well. More often than not, I just pass them off as things said to me by others because they want to, but I somehow justify it as they actually mean someone else entirely.
They can't possibly mean me. After all. I know me. I know who I am. I know I don't really deserve them. I don't know if I ever did.
But every time...EVERY. TIME. I want to open that door and let him out of the box I put him in, I can't bring myself to do it.
Right now, it just hurts too much.
Maybe that's why as I sit here trying to write this, I can't get myself to stop crying. Because that little boy just needs to and he's been fighting it for way too long. He's tried to be the strong one, not showing weakness and letting those who love him now see the pain he's carried this far.
I don't know if I'm ready to accept being loved on that sort of level yet. I know that may seem odd, but it's honest. Not because I don't think those around me should, but because I'm still grappling with allowing myself to.
Such is what happens when you keep the best part of you locked away.
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