11.17.22 \/ 11.19.22<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not easy for me to depend on other people,\u201d I said.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI know,\u201d she replied.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I trusted you first with my time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A date at a local cafe I found myself holding some sense of safety at. A large table stolen for the sake of two – for you and I. I sipped on my tea and watched you enter and there was something about you, something in the way you walked, in the way you held yourself, where I knew I was hopelessly smitten. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I trusted you with my home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A sanctuary built out of strife, designed to house me, to shelter me, and no one else. A couch made for one. Stairs designed for my gait. A kitchen modified to my specifications. I let only a select few through those doors. And I unlatched the deadbolt for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I trusted you with my mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nervous as I was, I endeavored to be myself. I stepped forward with as little masking as I could manage, until I could manage to go without it completely. I let you see me. And you stayed the night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I trusted you with my body. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A kiss. Searching hands. The tender way you undressed me and ran your fingertips along my skin. I remember watching you, heart pounding, worried you might not like something, worried I might do something wrong. You dove between my legs, and wiped clear the anxiety from my mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I trusted you with my heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I told my therapist I was falling in love. I fretted it was too soon, that I was foolish, that something was wrong with me. I feared you weren\u2019t where I was, that you did not perceive me in the same way, all while I held a key to my home clutched in my palms. You had given me one to your home. And now, weeks later, I made a copy of the key to mine. No one else had a key. No one. And here I was, about to give one to you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I trusted you with my safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We began to live together. I sought your presence often, found solace in the way you held me, in the way you listened. I curled up around you at night, and snuggled close in the morning. Never before had I felt so comfortably protected. So gently loved. So wanted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It was not until recently that I realized I was holding back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a child, I had to be independent. I needed to grow fast, to learn faster, to build up my skills before I found myself left behind. Aren\u2019t you old enough now? <\/em>I would hear. Why can\u2019t you do this by yourself yet? <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The urging to mature settled in, perhaps for the better, most certainly for the worse. I scrambled to become an adult, even as naivety kept me from understanding my body, from understanding my mind. I must take care of myself. That\u2019s what I was taught. I must never rely on anyone else, because people will let you down. You must only rely on god, and your own strength of will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But without god, with a deity that has abandoned the world and abandoned me, what more do I have? <\/p>\n\n\n\n And so I hoisted that burden upon my shoulders, and carried into us, carried into what we have. I must rely on myself. I must not ask for help. I cannot trust anyone to support me. To love me. To care for me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Only after a few months of living together did I realize you\u2019d exposed that burden for what it became: a tumor, a malicious growth, a weight that would crush me and consume us. As I struggled to relax in the certainty of your gentle caring protection, I kept myself from fully letting me be me. From relying on you. From trusting you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This could not stand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n With scissors crafted of willpower and dogged determination, I began to cut the straps that held this to me, sawing away thread by thread at the distrust and fear that burrowed into every avenue of my being. I would trust you. I would relax with you. I would allow myself to feel safe and cared for by you, and – perhaps most importantly- I would learn to rely on someone other than myself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The weight is thick, and my scissors can only cut so deep a wound each day. It will take weeks. But I keep at it. Morning by morning, step by step, I shall learn to trust you with my reliance, and in that, learn to let myself be vulnerable in a way I never have been with another person. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Yesterday, I trusted you with all of me. And while I am still practicing this act, you saw me, and you held me, and you kissed my brow and whispered you loved me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 11.17.22 \/ 11.19.22 \u201cIt\u2019s not easy for me to depend on other people,\u201d I said. \u201cI know,\u201d she replied. I trusted you first with my time. A date at a local cafe I found myself holding some sense of safety at. A large table stolen for the sake of two…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2420,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[525,283],"tags":[158,12,238,114,97,37],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/pexels-photo-12095681.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p27tjX-D1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2419"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2419"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2421,"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2419\/revisions\/2421"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}