I'll follow my heart instead of good advice

There are a million stories I could tell that would probably change your opinion about me. Some for the better, and some not so much. I have a tendency to drift in and out of touch with people as the circumstances of life change. I'm not sure that anyone really remembers me. To quote a Stevie Nicks lyric "when you hang up that phone, you cease to exist." In some ways, it feels like I have ceased to exist in my past. Like I became untethered to the person I used to be. And the ghost of who that was likes to coming knocking when hard times come around. Maybe it's an attempt to retrace my steps, or maybe it's just time.

It's like there are very clear fracture points, fault lines in my history where things shifted from being one thing to being completely different. Some were externally obvious, major life events that everyone can see. Things like starting university, moving across the country, big job changes. But others might not have been obvious from the outside, but I can feel the cracks in the foundation, feel the line between before and after. And these are things like when my awareness of my depression sunk in, when I truly accepted my sexuality, when I fell down the rabbit hole, when those little switches flipped inside my brain. I left people behind in the dust, too caught up in the rubble inside my head to stop and see if I was running from friendship. Sometimes I was running from a bad situation, but sometimes I was just running scared. Afraid of rejection so I just bailed instead. I blew off my history, and it left me a little disconnected.

That's not to say I am trying to go back. What's done is done. If you got burned, I am truly sorry. I hesitate to use the word trauma because I am aware of how much privilege I have. But there were real wounds to my psyche, and I made the mistakes I made trying to figure out how to live with it. As much as we are all our own protagonist, we are also an enemy in someone else's tale.  I also wonder how many of the burned bridges are my fault and how much distance was put there by others. I lost friends when I came out. I lose friends when I share my (very strong) political opinions, when I speak my mind. I've had people I thought were friends rip the floor out from under me. I built up these walls to protect my heart for a reason. 

The thing is, these past couple of years have been hell. And things that would have tempted me to flee before had me solidifying my foundation this time around. It's not a physical one yet, who knows where home might truly be. But it's with what matters to me most. I have something to fight for. And it kind of cracked the edge of that armor around my heart, that part of my that closed off from the world from fear of rejection. That part that hardened every time a middle school friend told me that she would never hang out with a lesbian, every time someone told me I was pretty big for a dancer, that time  a girl on a university trip refused to share a room with me because I was gay, the times I nearly let the darkness swallow my soul. 

Because in spite of all that, I am lucky. I found the person I want to spend my life with when we were fairly young and damaged, and we're still here 13 years later. I found or rediscovered hobbies in my 30s, I managed a random and unplanned career change that, while imperfect, gives me some time to sort out the rest of it. I have some good friends who didn't let me push them all the way out of my life. And I have some clearer ideas of what I'm working towards. Sure, it looks like a big mess from the outside, but there are things that I do wish I could have learned sooner, but better late than never.