blogging through the insecurity

Ok so I am blogging this on the basis that you as my friends will respect the fact that I am keeping the person I am blogging about to myself and that you won't ask 500 questions trying to figure out who I am writing about because it is not the who that is important here, it is the me and the crazy, insecure irrational thoughts that the thought of dating brings to the surface. Oh & I am not asking for dating advice here either.

So there is a man in my world that I think I wish to get to know. He is in my world but not a part of it. I have previously noticed him notice me and lately I have been noticing him more and more. This week we had our usual interaction nothing miraculous, nothing special just a few words exchanged. Anyway I get home tonight confused and being a total girl (the over-analyse who said what, did I notice, play by play freezing the interaction or lack there of) and it dawned on me that when it comes to love I don't think I am worth very much. I found myself (much to my surprise) looking at him with big dopey eyes all excited to learn what he had to offer, wanting him to notice me, to interact with me, wanting to find out more about him. Seeing him as this intriguing, exciting person that I wanted to get to know but at the same time I realised that I felt really small and I realised that the idea of interacting with someone on this level makes me feel really insecure.

In the past I have not loved the men in my world well. I loved one of two ways - deeply fake and misguided or from behind a wall. I either moulded myself ever so slightly into a version of me because I didn't know myself and then I loved the version of the person that I choose to see or I sat behind a wall and loved out of the tiny boarder of the space around my heart. So basically I didn't love, not from a real place and I am not confident that I could love either of those ways anymore even if I wanted to (for the record I don't want to). I guess what I'm trying to say is I have no confidence in my ability to love a man and right now I know that I couldn't even fall into my old habits and that freaks me out.

I mean I live from a place of me now, a place that I didn't even know existed before and this year God has opened up my heart and showed me how to use it and yes I am loving the people in my world, I get that but in my head that is different to loving a man, one man.

Then there is the whole thought of allowing someone in, of being vulnerable and exposed. The thought of "opening myself up" is quickly followed by the thought "to the possibility of being hurt". I'm sure that that thought is not rational. I'm sure that other people think of allowing someone to get to know them and building a life together is really beautiful and precious and amazing but to me it strikes fear into my heart and the anticipation of pain. I'd imagine that this is the feeling that a small possum gets when they see the bright light of a car coming towards them as they cross the road, they turn and look and see the bright light, there eyes pop out of their head and they know in an instant that if they don't get out of the way right now BAM! they will become road kill. Wow reading that back makes me think that perhaps I need therapy but I'm serious that is honestly how I feel.

I could blame it on bad boyfriends (and believe me that would be valid, my choice in boyfriends has always resulted in me becoming the road kill I convince myself that I am destined to become) but if I did then I would be neglecting the me in those relations. I would be neglecting that statement, I would be neglecting the fact that I made those choices because that was what I felt like I deserved which I think brings me back to now. I think that when I think of dating I think of the person/s I used to be and not me now. I don't see the person I am or what I have to offer so when someone comes along who I want to get to know I feel like they wouldn't want to get to know me because I didn't want to get to know the person I was so why would they.

I don't see myself as the woman I have become, I don't see the loving heart I have been taught to use, I don't see the passion and purpose that I have in my life, I don't see the things I have to offer. I see the mistakes and the pain of my past and it makes me insecure..

You know it's absolutely extraordinary to me, for the first time in my life I like who I am, I know without a doubt that in this moment I am exactly where I am supposed to be, my life has purpose and I know where I am going and yet still inside there is this piece of me that doesn't think I am worth the love of a man.

That statement is hard to write but in my head there is a voice that tells me it is true, in my heart I know it is a lie. I guess I need to align my head with my heart, I need to take a really good look at myself and allow the realisation that it doesn't matter what I do or don't do or what I have or haven't done because here in the silence in no make-up doing nothing I am worthy of love. Love is a gift from God and all I need to do is receive it.

This week my prayer is to know that my worth is not determined by my past but by God and he paid a high price for me, to know that I am not only worthy of love but that I am already loved beyond measure and to allow my heart to receive the love that God is trying to bring into my world. Big prayer, thankfully my God is a big God xx