I’ve found the key to my Pandora’s box. It is simple really, yet very difficult to find. The key – are you ready for it? – is feeling unlovable. I feel unlovable. It’s why I fear change, why I put pieces of myself away into a box that I buried deep inside. Those pieces that were mocked, that were laughed at, that were criticized, or that I thought people wouldn’t like. I built a wall around my box, it is 30 feet high, 6 feet deep and my husband is still trying to scale it. But he’ll never reach the top, because I keep changing how high it is. My emotional walls are so thick, that I routinely fall back on practicality whenever an emotional wave threatens to crest the wall. Every so often, a crack appears and emotions leak out, but I plug those up as soon as possible with whatever is handy. Usually, it’s my husband’s romantic notions that try and break through. I scoff at them, laugh at them, push back hard with sayings like, “I need to do the dishes”, or “we can, but first I want to let my dinner settle.” He subsides, chastised, hurt, and crawls inside his own walls, fearing to poke his head up again to try one more time. Really, who can blame him? A person can only get beaten with the same stick so many times before they no longer attempt to breach the magnificent wall around the person they love. And it is magnificent in it’s containment. I built it block by block. I was called stupid; a brick was placed. My sisters laughed at me; a brick was placed. And in the center, all of my hopes and dreams, my individuality, my daring to be different, my dreams of being someone other than I made myself out to be, were locked away in a box. The map was burned, the key made invisible, so that I would never ever open it again. Never live life to the fullest, take chances, be who I really am, be silly, sing songs, play dress up, climb trees, wear pigtails. All for fear of being proven right – that I’m unlovable. And who can feel love when they feel unworthy of it? Who can feel that warm fuzzy feeling of truly understanding another human and loving them fully, if the wall is up to keep it all out? That’s the problem with feeling unlovable. Even when you are loved (not if, when), you don’t really believe it or trust it, because how could anyone really love you, especially when you’re cocooned behind your wall, ready for a siege that is all from the past?
And that’s the cycle you get stuck in. You feel unlovable and can’t feel the love that others have for you, so you don’t feel the love, and blame it on being unlovable. Around and around and around you go on the same merry-go-round. You want off, but can’t seem to climb your own walls to do so, and anyway, it’s way too scary to leave your comfortable (but lonely) fort behind the wall. The wall reinforces the reason for its existence. And the cycle continues. You want love, you want to be loved, but because you don’t take any chances, you never find love. But, even if you did, would you recognize it behind your wall? Nope. Not a chance. How many people need reinforcement of that love every single day because they don’t believe it – can’t believe anyone could love them? They never feel secure in the love that someone offers them, because then they’d have to admit that they are lovable. Or the person who rebuffs everyone, thinking “I’m perfectly fine by myself. I don’t need anyone or anything. Pshaw on your romance. I mock your schmaltzy flowers and poetry. Ha!” Well, look who’s laughing now? It isn’t you, tucked deep behind your wall. No, instead you feel that thick hard knot in your stomach, the one that never goes away, so instead you pretend that you don’t need love, that you don’t need anyone. Isn’t that easier than scaling your wall and putting yourself out there? You think so. I thought so. But living behind the wall isn’t just lonely, it’s soul killingly awful. But you’re a hypocrite, you say. You have a husband, you have someone who loves you enough to be with you, through thick and thin. You’re right, I do, but I’ve damaged him with my wall. I’ve made him give up on being himself, expressing himself the way he wants. And now he has his own wall. I’m not the reason his wall exists, but I sure helped in shoring it up with the volleys I launched, safe behind my own walls, to keep him out. Because he also has his own insecurities, his own driving needs for human connection. He didn’t build a wall like I did; instead, he sought out the love he didn’t think he deserved – again and again and again. And was kicked in the teeth more times than I could take (not just by me). But he had hope and optimism, and a never ending supply of “I will find the love I need, dammit, no matter the cost.” And oh, how it cost him. The little pieces he tucked away in a box on a shelf that he couldn’t emotionally keep a hold of. The insecurities and irrational emotional responses to a perceived threat. Because that’s what happens when you feel unlovable. Someone pokes you, hurts you, and you lash out at them. They respond by lashing out at you and then both of you are slinging mud balls from safe behind the walls you built up to escape the unavoidable truth that you are unlovable. You are not worthy of love. And like the wall, the cycle continues.
But you can break the cycle. It is possible. You have to be brave and ballsy, and maybe a teensy bit reckless. And you have to be okay with getting your teeth handed to you, but getting up and trying again. The first step is the hardest. It’s recognizing the deepest fear inside of you. That you are unlovable. That first step doesn’t break down the wall, but it helps you to begin taking the bricks away. Many people have said, the first step in fixing yourself is by recognizing the problem. Once you recognize it, you can’t ignore it any more. Well, not exactly. You could ignore it, but it’s a lot harder now and you have to work at it. Why spend the energy denying it when you can spend the energy unraveling it? Why retreat into the darkness when you can step into the light? It’s warm in the light and cold in the dark.
The next step is recognizing why someone would love you and why you love someone. What it is really that drives that emotion? I’m still figuring that one out, since feeling unlovable precludes the concept that someone could love you as you are. So you start somewhere small. I love my laugh – the deep belly laugh that erupts out of my mouth and the can’t stop laughing giggle that takes me over when I’m feeling nervous. I love the way my hands look. I love the way my hands move when I talk. I know, on some level, that I am loved. Why else would I have friends from long ago who tell me they miss me? I made an impact. They love me. I’m still figuring that out too – why do they miss me? Why do they even remember me? I’m no one. Nothing. There’s the wall again. They love me; they miss me. There has to be something about me that keeps me in their thoughts and hearts. And my husband definitely loves me; intellectually I understand that, and sometimes, when I let myself, I truly feel the love he has for me. But there’s always that voice in the back of my head – why does he love you when you’re such a bad wife? Because he does. Because I’m lovable and loved, even if I don’t believe it to be true. This is the journey I’m on. A journey of self-discovery, or rather, a re-discovery of who I am and who I should be, if I let myself out of the box. It’s a big wall to tear down, but I’m making progress. One brick at a time. I peek my head out, stretch my toe out to test the water, it feels fine, until I get burned and retreat behind my wall. But I’m determined to break it down, to end the restrictions on my soul, no matter how burned I get. I may retreat, but I keep putting my toe out, much like my husband does. Or did, until I beat him down with my catapults of mud volleyed from behind the wall. But I have hope for him and for myself. And that’s a start.