Bright Lights

There's a girl I know who could just never seem to get it right. Her life is a pattern. A perpetual cycle of wrong choices and mishaps. In her search for approval she has lost herself, her identity, though the saying goes you can't lose something you never had.

She once dated this guy who wanted to control her soul and her life. She was looking for God. He had found God and was looking for a wife. He told her what to believe. She couldn't believe it. They argued all the time. She finally left for summer to work for her brother a province away. He drove out a week later and convinced her to return. They continued the power struggle until her dad died that fall. Her faith vanished, along with the devotee.

There was another one just coming out of prison for accidentally murdering his mother at 17 in a fit of rage. They met online, he was moving up to a half-way house with a curfew of eleven. He sang, played guitar, quoted Nietzsche. She had a big heart. He always seemed a bit distant but she tried to find a way in. He was the one who found a way in and then, broke it off. Left his keyboard as a consolation prize and married a few months later.

There were others...like these.

The emotionally unavailable, the bad boys, the addicts, the users, the explosives, the ones who need to be "fixed". She is drawn to them... She who, as a child grew up thinking I wish he would love me, now is subconsciously attracted to men who can’t meet her emotional needs.

Did she really ever love any of these men? Not these ones. In hindsight, it wasn't ever really about love... It was sticking around despite all the red flags, the inner turmoil...giving in to fear, guilt...putting off the inevitable because it was just too damn comfortable, familiar....it was putting the needs of others ahead of her own...seeing the good, ignoring the bad...it was fulfilling her sick need for approval, her codependent tendencies. The persistent longing to be loved, to be cherished, to be seen, to be needed, to care for someone; this crazy motivating force to find someone to fill an empty space.

But it is a space that she is only starting to understand: only she can fill...

There comes a point in life when you are thrown a curveball. One that you did not see coming. It hits you head on and you see stars. In that instant, there is a major shift in perspective. The stars leave a light and suddenly, things are crystal clear.

And voilà, everything changes.