Rewriting My Story

I realized something very important this morning: the role I have been playing my whole life, that of the tragic love figure - alone and unwanted, has been an addiction for me. I am defining addiction as extreme attachment.

Sure, some things happened in my early childhood that triggered those initial feelings of being alone and unwanted, but the perpetuation of the myth has been my own doing. It was my life story, and I can see now that it couldn't have played out any other way, because I wrote it that way, with my thoughts and expectations.

So, time and again, when love presented itself, I turned it away. I hadn't written love into my story, only the search for love. The search for love is perfectly safe. As long as love is just out of reach, you've got nothing to lose, right? My whole life has been about making sure I've got nothing to lose when it comes to love. Apparently, I have a deep-seated belief in loss that needs to be uprooted and tossed.

And when I married, of course I married someone who was both qualified and willing to support me in my role. I always felt alone and unwanted in my marriage, but that was never his fault. He couldn't have played any role in my life other than the one I offered. If he had come bearing ardent love, deep intimacy, openness, attentiveness, I would have turned him away. No roles were available for lovers in my story.

Oh, I wanted those things, deeply and passionately. But I couldn't allow myself to have them and still maintain the image I held of myself as alone and unwanted.

And no amount of Lights! Camera! Action! could change the course of the story, then or now. The only thing that can make a difference is awareness that the role is my own creation and a major rewrite of the story.

The awareness has dawned. The rewrite is in progress.