I don't think I'm like most people, I don't crave company they way I think most people do. I'm an introvert in the original form. Not antisocial they way most people define introverts -I like people and company I just don't get my energy from others, if anything I need time alone to replenish my energy. I think a lot of people find that hard to understand. I'm not sure why that is it's just something I've noticed. Some people give energy, some people take it, both are necessary.
It's crazy to say but I was never more lonely than when I was married. I'm sure I'm not the only one who felt this way but that always confused me. I had two families instead of one, two groups of friends, and a person to call my own, only I think he was never really mine. I loved him and when I decided that I was his I gave him all of me, the good and the bad. I thought that meant I could not be lonely, but that was naive. Even if we had matched up perfectly and I had been enough for him, he couldn't be responsible for my loneliness. You are still two people, and when there is two there is always sacrifice, compromise.
The truth is, when you are alone you fill yourself up on you. You're only lonely when you're not enough for yourself. When I was young I had this expectation that people let you down, but that they also hold you back in a way. I know it was mostly because of my mother, but I saw many other examples of it too and it offended me most when it happened to those I loved the most, it made me put up this sort of wall where I learned to love people but to keep people just outside it, just enough that if they didn't choose me back I wouldn't be hurt. It wasn't intentional so much as reactive, and because of that I learned how to be alone but not lonely.
I also saw this other hurtful cycle where one person became dependent on another and when that ended, that person no longer knew what they were worth or who they were. If you asked me when I was a teenager I would have told you I'd never get married (my cynical self-defensive side). I was weirdly stubborn about a lot of things, but it was because I was afraid it would be to easy to lose my identity, to give too much and also; I'd never been in love.
When I met the person I was going to marry, I resisted him at first, but then I knew. I knew I'd give it all up just for him. The irony is, that's not how I lost my identity. I was so terrified that another person would take it from me that I never saw it coming when it was me that took it instead. I put so much weight and worth on what I could do, mentally, physically, that when that was stripped away I could no longer name what I was.
Before that happened I had the confidence to demand a certain amount of respect and attention from my partners and I would never have allowed anyone to take advantage of me or make me feel like less. After that, guilt and shame made me weak, it made me concede. He didn't do that to me -I did. I wasn't less I just didn't have the experience, the knowledge or self-compassion to understand what I was worth. I may not appear to be much and I have a lot of weaknesses, but I have an education most people will never get, it's not practical from a material perspective but it has value all the same. He didn't see it though and that makes him wrong for me, and me for him.
I don't regret giving out my heart the way I did, but I let myself become dependent on him for everything, I gave him all the power and the balanced never returned. Even knowing this mistake I couldn't tell you how to do it differently. I'm not exactly sure how to balance that out after such a huge shift. It's almost like you have to start from scratch, break it all down and rebuild otherwise expectations remain. You can't go through something like this and remain unchanged, so is it possible for a person to love you the same if you have fundamentally changed? Maybe not. Maybe it's the love that remains that matters most.
So here I am on my own again, changed. So far feeling less alone than I have in years, and I will do my best to love myself and never let anyone make me feel like less again, if that means I'm on my own forever then I'm ok with that.