Why does letting someone in always backfire?

Did I miss the TED talk on this?

This is definitely not a political post, just a question for which I am seeking an answer I cannot seem to find, and I just can’t seem to get clear of it.

I’m 49 years old, almost 50 in fact. And I’ve lived a lot of life. Who hasn’t, right?

And over the course of these 5 decades, I’ve made a metric fuckton of mistakes. I’ve been mean. I’ve been cruel. I’ve been infatuated. I’ve been in love. I’ve been abused. I’ve been a victim and a warrior. I’ve been afraid and I’ve been brave. I’ve been vindictive and I’ve been kind. I’ve been so sad I didn’t want to live anymore, so alone I couldn’t stop crying, and so proud to have dug myself out I felt like the king of the world. I’ve been naive and foolish. I’ve believed I knew more than I actually did and at the same time that I knew nothing at all. And up until the last few years, I had what most people who know me would describe as a life-threatening allergy to admitting I was wrong. About anything.

But through all of it… the ups and downs, the trial and error, the darkness and the light, the missteps and mistakes, with all the uncertainty I carry with me to this very day, there is one thing I have learned about myself in recent years that I know to be 100% true — I now know what I don’t know. And I’ll admit it.

And after all these years, and all the insight time has provided me on a million trillion things, there is still this one seemingly elemental thing other people seem to understand with ease and I don’t know shit about, like not the first fucking clue, and it is this: I have no idea when and where and how and most importantly who, I let into my heart.

Or if I should at all.

Because every time I think I’ve made the right call, it turns around and slaps me in the face. And then I realize that I know as much about choosing and trusting the right person as I know about astrophysics, and I don’t know Jack shit about astrophysics.

I spent decades in a romantic relationship, later marriage that was, to put it mildly — challenging. At some point. I questioned every single ounce of my worth.

There were a few years towards the end when I really didn’t think I would survive. I didn’t think I wanted to survive. If not for my kids, I wouldn’t have.

They occupied my whole heart and saved me from the darkness that was consuming it. There was a daily battle between my mind telling me I did no one any good here on this earth, and my heart telling me that my two kids were the most perfect, most beautiful, most precious gifts I’d ever been given, and that I had to stay and fight my own demons for them.

And it was hard as hell and it took a very long time and a lot of self-inflicted extremely necessary pain, but I decided to survive. Their love for me and my love for them was all I needed.

Aside from my siblings and a few close friends, I didn’t need or want to let anyone else in to my heart. It was full to capacity, the door shut and the gate locked.

And it stayed that way for a very long time. I was proud of it as a matter of fact. I’d make jokes about how I didn’t need love. About how refreshing it was to have the remote to myself. To never have to answer to anyone else, amuse, appease or please anyone else. I was single and unattached and absolutely downright blissful about it.

After all, it gave me so much time to be with myself. To learn who I was. What I needed and needed to work on. I’ve learned to rely on myself in a way I never had before. I determined my own sense of self-worth. I didn’t need anyone else to make that determination for me.

And that gate around my heart was doing its job. No one was getting in. It was like a fortress.

Until someone caught me off guard and got in.

And it burned hot and bright and was fun and exciting and I was falling in love and then… as quickly as it began, it was over. And I was devastated.

So the gate went back up with better locks in place.

And then it happened again.

This one snuck past all my defenses, and before I could send the army to apprehend them and escort them out, it was too late.

And at first I was mad about it. Damn gate didn’t hold again. I was angry that I was feeling things because feeling things meant that inevitably, I’d be feeling bad things and sad things and self-worth questioning things. And I was really pissed at myself for letting that happen after all the work I had done.

And then suddenly, I stopped being mad. It felt great and I let it feel great. It was reaffirming and supportive and exciting and down right wonderful. And I was feeling so light and optimistic and happy and empowered and then… it changed.

In much the same way as it had begun. I didn’t see it coming. I couldn’t have anticipated it because it came out of nowhere at least to my mind at the time.

And then what I worried would happen began to happen. I wondered what I had done? What was wrong with me? Why wasn’t I worthy of love? Maybe if I’d been thinner or smarter or funnier or a million other “ors” that weren’t me. The point was that I thought I deserved to feel love, when that was so clearly meant for other people. Not for me.

And then I pulled the gate up again. I had to.

And all that self-doubt festered for a while. Until one day I said to myself (while crying like a stupid-head, which is a non-technical term, for like the 5th day in a row) “What the hell are you doing? Knock it off!! You didn’t do a damn thing. This isn’t about you, it’s about them!! Snap out of it!!”

And I have largely “snapped out if it”, and the gate is still closed and will likely remain so for a long time if not forever, but I still have that lingering, nagging, unanswered question I just can’t seem to find an answer to - how do I keep getting these things so wrong?

Is there some secret you’re all not telling me? Is there a club — like in the basement of a pizza place, no no, not THAT pizza place basement, but like a bookstore basement which sounds like somewhere smart people would go to learn things they would then keep from the rest of us.

Is there a pamphlet I didn’t take on a NY street with instructions for picking a person who wouldn’t turn out to be really bad for me? Dang it, I’ve always worried about that.

I’m mostly kidding, although there is always a suspicious number of cars at that one bookstore, so…

But if you didn’t sign an NDA about the secrets of not opening one’s heart to those who seek to trample on it, could you share one or two with your pal in Jersey, cuz she doesn’t have a fucking clue.