Pieces of self...

Do you think that we give people pieces of ourselves? If so, are those pieces completely gone from us? Do those pieces ever return to us? Can people take pieces of us...even if we don't want them to have those pieces? Do we know ourselves in pieces or do we know ourselves as a whole being? Are there pieces of ourselves that nobody ever knows...fully? Why do some people have access to parts of ourselves that others don't? Who gets the password to who we are?

In my life I have seen myself in many different ways. I see myself shy at times, awkward even... I also see myself as confident and outgoing. I see myself patient yet sometimes intolerant. Overall I try to be an open person... open to a point... that point, over the years, has shifted and has often been undefined for me. But I think that I keep people at enough of a distance to not be able to hurt me... I have close friends, who know me better than other people... yet there are still walls that I keep up between myself and them. There have been some people who have been able to figure out ways to climb, unlock, or maneuver around those walls, but very few. I'm not sure when I became aware of the walls that I build. But... I remember the first time someone challenged me to disarm myself... One of my closest friends... perhaps the person who taught me what real friendship was really about... is Todd. Unfortunately, as time has passed, our contact has decreased... our lives in such different places. We grew up in the same town... I think my first memory of him was in middle school. I think I remember knowing who he was from his involvement in sports. We barely knew each other, he was a grade behind me.

After being bored managing the softball team as a freshman I began participating in track when I was a sophomore. Todd was also on the team. My friendship with Todd began because I had a crush on him... (I just heard my mom gasp! because I don't think she knows about how our friendship evolved and over the years I have worked hard to convince her, and others, that my relationship with Todd was strictly platonic, which it was. After growing to know and love him... I knew that we would NEVER be involved romantically...but feel blessed by our friendship...I was the best person at his wedding and stood by him as he married his wife.) Anyway...We had gotten to know each other a little more throughout my sophomore year... though I don't remember how.... then I remember we were on the way to a track meet in the spring and I had one of my friends tell one of his friends that I 'liked him, liked him'...you know, how you do in jr. high and high school. I remember being so taken aback when Todd did not respond according to social norms at the time... which would have been to tell one of his friends to tell one of my friends to tell me something, but... Todd himself turned to me on the bus and said, something about how we would be better friends. Was it awkward, YUP... was I uncomfortable? Yup... But. Not as awkward as one would have thought. In fact I think we ended up always sitting with each other or at least in close proximity to one another on each track meet after that. Todd ended up dating that girl I had told to tell one of his friends that I liked him... and for a while I felt like she had betrayed me a bit. But Anyway... after that point, somehow Todd and I ended up spending a lot of time together. And by my senior year, he was my best friend. Before Todd, my friendship history was a little tainted... childhood friends were often circumstantial... kids of my parents friends... neighbors... who at some point or another got complicated... when I made the basketball team and a friend didn't... it caused problems...I then became close with a couple of other girls...and there was usually a group of us that hung out together... but I often was made to feel like the third wheel... and instead of having friends based on circumstances.. it seemed I was a friend when it was convenient for people... and often way too conditional... like the friendship that ended because I told a friend her boyfriend was sleeping with the school... well... the girl who slept with everybody... and she accused me of being jealous that she had a boyfriend and I didn't.... until he told her the truth... and I was too hurt to trust her again... This friendship history may surprise some people who see me as someone who has more friends than they have acquaintances... but it's true... until Todd.

Todd and I used to spend a lot of time together... even after high school every summer we were pretty inseparable... we would sit for hours at night, in his back yard next to a fire pit and talk... about everything... about how we would never lose touch...about life...our philosophies about it... and anything else we came up with. It was in one of those late night conversations the summer before I went to college that Todd told me how much I had tested him before I let him be my friend. He told me how I gave him a lot of opportunities to walk away from our friendship... and he didn't. I hadn't realized it before then that I did test people and didn't necessarily push people away...but made it simple for people to walk away... not sure how to explain that better. I have always been... still am... more comfortable being the person who people lean on versus the person doing the leaning. I think that Todd was the first person who I believed was strong enough to hold me up when I needed it. This lesson came at such a good time... Todd told me I needed to know this piece of myself before going to college. He wanted me to know that not everyone would disappoint me. He was right.

Since then... I have had the fortune of having amazing people in my life... and in my own ways... have tested them all. And they have passed with flying colors...and I lean on them... to an extent.

So then... in my life... I met someone... and immediately offered to knock down all the walls... offered the keys, the combinations, and passwords... free of charge? Over the years, this has made no rational sense to me. There have been disappointments and unrealized expectations... yet... the walls have stayed down... and when I have tried to build stronger ones because I have thought there should be some walls between us... some damn strong walls... it hasn't worked...thankfully. My heart is on the line... always with him. I have tried to take it off the line, but it doesn't work. There has been pain, and tears, perhaps too many tears.... but there also has been fun, happiness, love even... not only have I made it simple for him to walk away from me... I have on several occasions rolled out the red carpet for him to do so... he has pulled back when I needed him to, told him to...begged him to... but has yet to disappear completely. I take comfort in that. Sometimes I feel like I am more me with him than any other time... we spent time together last night... and as always had a wonderful time. He makes me feel more beautiful and amazing than anyone or anything else... For some reason... his validations hold a lot of weight...sometimes I think because he thinks I don't need them... Last night we just had fun. After I finished coaching I called him and his flight had just landed...and he was going to check into his hotel. I came home, showered and met up with him there. We went out to a restaurant and sat in the bar so we could watch the Pats game while we ate, (GO PATS!!!), and at half time returned to his hotel to finish watching the game in our comfy gym shorts and t-shirts. We had a great time... catching up... me trying to impress him with my knowledge of football stats... which failed miserably... but I think he appreciates my efforts... then we talked about other things in our lives... We know each other in ways that I think surprises ourselves...He makes me laugh... he makes me feel connected... to him...to myself... He is a private person and may feel exposed about me sharing things here about him... but I want to share something... about him.. that pertains to my knee...and in order for you all to understand its significance.. you must know a little about him... about us.... He and I have strong chemistry... have since the first time we met... our connection is strong in many ways... yet much of what people may assume happens behind closed doors does not... I fall asleep in his arms...and wake up in his arms...and feel so safe and secure that it is hard for me to believe there is that kind of comfort in the world... the high regard we have for one another, the intimacy... is something I cherish... and the reasons we choose what boundaries are in place...he opens the car door for me when we go someplace... holds the door at restaurants... waits for me to start eating before he does...and a lot of other little things that make me feel....cherished...respected...

So how does this relate to my knee? For so long... my knee has been such a focus for me. My knee feels this way... looks that way... my doctor said this about my knee.. or that about my knee.... I can't do that because of my knee... I don't dare to do that because of my knee... my knee, my knee... my knee...the scars are there every day... reminding me of all of this... Truth is... there were times that I wish I had been able to see this person more throughout all of this...because he, like Todd... is strong enough to hold me up when I need it... and I needed it.. but it didn't work out... I think, in a weird way through this... I have made my knee a separate piece of myself... not attached to the rest of me... things I was feeling were surrounding my knee... and it became almost a separate entity... it had limited me for so long... that it was easier to be upset with it than to be upset with myself. Seeing my knee and the scars has been hard. The scars are ugly... some days I can see them as a good thing... reminding me that I feel better than before surgery... but other days I am mad about them... mad about this whole thing...that I had to experience it. I wear shorts to the gym and do almost want people to see it as proof that I have a reason to not be doing 3 miles on the elliptical machine... my knee has also been a scapegoat for me for a while too...allowing me what others consider a pretty damn good excuse to not do something...and now... it's almost like I am trying to reconnect with that part of me again... Last night, this man, kissed my knee... where my scars are...and I...didn't think of it as him kissing my scars...but kissing me...and almost cried...am crying as I replay it in my mind... there was something freeing in that moment... something that felt like I was able to connect with me again... I have not thought of my body as whole in a long, very long time... I have seen it as damaged... somehow translating into feeling damaged...that pieces of myself were/are damaged... and last night... something started to heal... something in my heart... it was a beautiful moment.

The pieces are starting to come together...and while I have focused so much on my knee feeling better, on my knee's healing, that I haven't thought about healing other parts of myself...

Just when I think I have processed this PVNS stuff and how it has impacted my life... it once again surprises me.


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