I am temporary to everyone I’ve always treated as a permanent part of my life.
I think I noticed a trend a long time ago. Back when I realized that no love is unconditional. There are always conditions. People always have their reasons. There is always a line.
I give my all to people. I love deeply, passionately, and with my whole heart. I hold nothing back. I put effort when others don’t. And so many times it is one sided.
I’m a giver, and I attract takers like a magnet. I attract narcissists. I attract lazy, self-centered people. And the more time I spend with them, the more I start to become them. Until I become someone I don’t know.
The trend was that the moment I figured out these people were takers, and their taking and never giving back was bad, toxic, and negative to my mental health, they would leave.
I have made friends and lost them because I give and give, and asking for someone to be there for me when I need them is just too much. Asking them for honesty is just too much. Asking them to love me in the way that I love them is just too much.
Because when I build relationships, I build them in stone. I put them on pedestals. But when others build relationships with me, they build them in sand. And when the tide comes, I feel like I’m drowning.
This was never more evident than on, and following, my wedding day.
When half of my family, the people who helped raise me, held me as a baby, watched me grow, couldn’t come to my wedding because I was marrying a woman. When I lost friends, family, and people I thought I would be friends with for life. When the people I told my deepest secrets to, walked away without so much as a reason.
And here I am with empty pedestals, broken sculptures, and a yard of empty stone that once held the people I thought loved me the most.
I’m sad to say that my wedding day was such a cause for pain, but it was.
It was also a reminder of who really matters, who really cares, and who really has built our relationship on stone along side me. I grew closer to those who knew how to give as much as they take. And I developed a very real image for the future I want.
And that future no longer contains takers or narcissists. That future only contains those who build me up in the way that I’ve always tried to do for them.