emotion (Photo credit: ro_buk [I’m not there])I’m not afraid of love. But I’m afraid of loving. I am afraid of loving someone so much that I can’t say no for fear of hurting them, because it doesn’t matter how compatible people are, at some time there will be disagreements. It’s a rather co-dependent behavior I realize and I avoid it so it won’t happen.
With most people I can keep my boundaries. They ask a favor, I evaluate, and I answer honestly. Easy. The closer I get to people emotionally, the more difficult it is to evaluate and answer honestly. Trust and the fear of abandonment get involved. Unfortunately the only way I know to break this cycle is to walk through the fear as consciously as possible. Be afraid and still hold my ground.
Maybe what I’m really afraid of is rejection, not love. If emotions were easy we would all be stable and not need our crutches of medication and television. I realize that I’m not the only one who has these issues, it just seems that so many other people are comfortable with being with someone without emotions. Or maybe they’ve fooled me. Either way I will deal with my issues and pick up the pieces later.
Janet West has been a writer since the late 1990s. When someone asked, "If nothing were impossible, what would she do?" The answer was automatic. Write. When she crafted her ideas into words, she felt alive.
Her early writing years were in child development magazines, but now her interests have expanded. Although the love of learning and teaching is still the core of who she is.
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