Disappointment and obligation

1. In my bones, I feel my mother left me because of some combination of my being a disappointment and my simply wanting too much of her.

2. Like many humans, I take my formative trauma – my mom’s departure, and the meanings I attach to it – and I repeat it (them), over and over, hoping somehow to undo it, to make it not have happened….

3. Even as I try oh-so-hard both to avoid situations in which I can be a disappointment (by allowing myself to be obligated to someone, by allowing someone to attach hopes or expectations to me), and by structuring situations to protect against that possibility (see: D/s), I find myself in precisely those situations over and over.

Alas, it did happen. My mom did leave. I may or may not have been a disappointment, may or may not have asked too much of her.

Either way, it happens again (I conjure it, I relive it), almost every day.

Sometimes, I do it with people I barely know. Others, with people close to me. I’ve written about this before, but one great virtue of this dissolute life I lead is that I get to be left, to be a disappointment to, people (women) who, yes, matter to me, but who do so in a contained, discrete, safe way.

Ashley messaged me overnight, recently. Basically, she said, “You shit – you’ve treated me poorly and I’m done.” She said it politely. Nicely, even. And with some sadness. But she’s right. I was unthinking, unkind with (to) her. I responded laconically when she texted. Didn’t initiate contact. Except when there was a hole in my schedule I wanted to fill with her.

Ashley’s not alone in this category in recent days. There are a couple of others I’ve treated similarly poorly. The Persian Kitty. A correspondent/distant buddy I haven’t described here….

What they all share in common? I’ve allowed myself to feel they want something (anything) of me, other than what I might want (or not want) of them, or to give them. This is a loathsome way to be in a relationship with an actual human, but it’s been what I’ve been capable of, of late. Fingers crossed that I’ll emerge from this funk sooner rather than later.

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