Please welcome Kerry Kijewski as she gets real about love.
Sometimes I think love, pain, shame, and embarrassment are so entwined, I can’t untangle them from one another. The strands of emotion and feeling are separable, if I really look at my past, in reflection, but in the moment I seem to make every one of the mistakes there are to be made.
Why did I think I was not deserving of love? I had two loving and devoted parents and a safe and happy childhood. The teen years weren’t typical ones. I didn’t know what dating really felt like until I was launched into the oddest of odd teen relationships.
I call it that because the romance wasn’t like I saw in the teen romance movies I loved to watch.
Was it me? Was there something wrong? Was I not kissable?
Where were the ones to step in and stop things? I had a boyfriend for a year and a half, but something about it didn’t feel right. I knew it, felt it in my heart and in the pit of my stomach.
No. No. No. It had nothing to do with me. He was struggling with his sexuality and himself. I was a casualty of this though. What about me?
I was the perfect girl to test out what his true feelings were, what his attraction to a girl might be, I was the test relationship, the safe and plain girl, but he was figuring thoughts out too.
What did I learn? Why did I wait nearly ten years to put myself out there, to look for love? Shame. I was only chosen because I seemed safe. I wasn’t attractive to him or anyone.
I felt embarrassment to talk about it. I had no malice toward him, for being who he was. It was simply a fear of only attracting guys who could never return my feelings. What if it happened again? Could I survive that?
The shame for waiting so long, for feeling so very inexperienced when I did finally make the effort.
The invention of online dating was my salvation and my embarrassment all in one. The stigma still hovered.
How did you meet? This question caused anxiety every time it was asked of me. Why?
I thought I knew, had the best example possible, what love felt like. I trusted my instincts, until I felt the doubt creeping in, but my timid nature, not wanting to speak up for myself – misstep after misstep, making decisions with real life consequences.
My religious teachings, letting family down, but what about myself?
If you’d asked me who would have lived with two guys before she was even thirty, I wouldn’t have pointed to myself. I wanted marriage, but I still couldn’t believe someone had picked me. I knew where it was leading and it was all I’d ever wanted, or was it?
Not the right guy. How to get out of it? I suddenly understood unintentionally using another person to figure out ourselves.
I woke up in the morning, and by night, I had made up my mind. I was leaving.
I felt like a flake. I felt like a quitter. Three months. Three and I had to go.
Would anyone be able to see past my blindness? Did I put pressures on a guy, on a relationship, that simply couldn’t be shouldered? Did I give up my only chance?
What was love? Maybe I didn’t know as much as I thought I did.
I’m fun. I’m funny. I’m loving. I know all this. Not enough. Will never, ever be enough.
Shame. Embarrassment. Fear.
Just when you think you’ve got it, it slips away from you, from me, through my fingers. How easy is passion to find? How soon before it all disappears?
My parents stand by, watching me make more mistakes, but they raised me into adulthood, a land where I’d make my own choices. What could they say? What could they do but remain the two wonderful, supportive souls they always were.
I felt like a fool. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice… The shame was all mine.
He blew into my life, the passion felt so real, and then he blew out again, leaving me stunned and numb.
Shame for leading myself into such heartache. All on me, but anger, regret, pain all kept up their surge. He was an easy target for these things, but it was me all along, me I was truly mad at.
Never enough. Never will be.
Shame. Embarrassment. Pain. Loneliness. Hopelessness.
Writing appeared out of the darkness, hoisting me up when I fell. Writing became my love, but in this affair, I hold back. I wonder if it will last, if there’s any hope for a future, if I will lose the writing I love, if I will ever be worthy in its eyes. I can only hold onto it, to hope for more, if I release the shame, the embarrassment, the pain. Let it bleed onto the page and speak the words I’ve been longing to say.
Passion for my love of writing and my love of words. Can I have love? Do I deserve these things? Am I truly loveable? Can I get real and learn from all this? Will I ever be someone’s partner, someone’s world? Why do people leave?
So, what’s with all the questions you ask? These bombard my mind, when sleep will not come. I am sick and tired of holding things inside. I can’t do it anymore. All that baggage weighs me down. I need to unload it all, if I’m ever going to believe I can love and be loved by someone. Not a second before. So here I am.
Kerry is a writer and blogger. She was born visually impaired. She writes to make sense of the world around her.
She has a Certificate of Creative Writing and has written a novel for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).
She had a short essay published on BREVITY’s Nonfiction Blog and just recently she was included in a romance anthology:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B011LW085W?*Version*=1&*entries*=0
You can find her, as Her Headache, at her blog:
https://kkherheadache.wordpress.com/
Or on Facebook and Twitter:
https://www.facebook.com/herheadacheblog
https://twitter.com/kkherheadache
Kerry lives in Ontario, Canada with her literary-themed dog and cat: Dobby and Lumos.
HASTYWORDS 
You are real, Kerry, and so is your writing. One hungers for more. And, those questions: Am I loved and do I deserve it? They are hard ones for many. I’m not sure we can ever finally and definitely know the answers of others’ hearts, only our own, the love we feel going outward. There is a longer bit of writing on that that keeps trying to take form. I grows slowly, but sharings such as yours help it along. Do, please, indulge your love of words and writing. And, thanks to Hasty for featuring you here.
LikeLike
Thank you very much for reading and for these words of wisdom. I like to ask the big questions in life I guess.
🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Reblogged this on Her Headache and commented:
Thank you, Hasty, for giving me the chance to get real about love.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This – and you – are gorgeous. Gorgeous. I’m so glad you told your story and how it affected you for so long. Those feelings are all too real for so many people. I’m a firm believer that the right love comes when it’s the right time in both people’s lives. Firm.
In the meantime, be happy loving yourself. It makes all the difference in the world.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks Lisa. I value your advice. You give me hope.
🙂
Thanks for reading.
I am focusing on loving me and I hope to do that by the sound of the violin.
😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
I hopped over here from your FTSF post – I thought I had read this already and I was right. Thanks for your sweet words. Can’t wait until you post a video of yourself playing!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh,, that may be a while.
🙂
But then again, you never know. Maybe I should. I will see how my first lesson goes tomorrow. I have had another request, so we’ll see.
LikeLike
Pingback: Getting Real About Love and the Girl I Used To Be, #BeReal #FTSF | Her Headache
I bet it felt good to write this out loud. I had a similar experience that I don’t write about because all my posts go on facebook and it wouldn’t take long to figure out who I’m writing about. As far as I know, he never came out. He’s just single. While it was still heartbreaking for the young 20-something me, it had to be so much more for your younger self.
I’d like to introduce you to another blogger, she doesn’t link up anywhere so you may not have read her yet. I hope you find her inspiring and a kindred spirit. Her name is Launna – http://lettersfromlaunna.blogspot.com.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you. It did feel good, cathartic.
🙂
I just hope I don’t come across as vindictive or vengeful.
We don’t keep in touch, but I sometimes still wonder. I don’t use names and hope to tell my side of a story that has other sides to it.
Thank you for reading. Off to check out the blog you recommended.
LikeLike
You are perfectly lovable just as you are, Kerry. Just as you are, is enough to find lasting love.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I am learning that.
🙂
Just as I am. Thank you.
LikeLike
Oh Kerry, your heart and your voice are SO valuable, and valid. I’m so glad you were able to release much of your emotions and your story here, for both support and affirmation. I believe all of us women have felt much of those things you experience, and it takes that impenetrable self love to battle all our insecurities.
Shame and embarrassment is SO a part of my past, and how I am too… not feeling loved or lovable… oh yes oh yes oh yes. Me too. BUT we can learn to create our own power within ourselves to combat those demons and rise into the belief that we are worthy of love, we are worthy of hope and we are our own miraculous masterpiece. I truly believe that… and I inch toward that truth every day.
May you do the same, new friend.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Learning to replace those feelings of shame and worthlessness with worthiness and empowerment.
🙂
I do appreciate all the support and the affirmations from people like you.
Both sorry and glad you could so easily relate with my post. Thank you for reading.
LikeLike
When I look back at my failed relationships, I no longer feel shame but I do get angry with myself at times for “wasting so much time.” But then I think maybe I needed that time with those people in order to figure out what I don’t want, you know? I will say that I absolutely know that you are lovable and that I believe you’ll find the right person for you at the right time in your life. I’m so glad that you were able to write here at Hasty’s and get some of the emotions in writing so that you can sort through them and continue to love yourself and know that you’re lovable.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Me too.
I have mostly worked through the shame, but the anger still sticks. Guess they are still connected. I don’t want to be an angry person and hope, for the most part, that I do not come across that way.
Thanks for reading and offering your perspective Kristi.
LikeLike
Pingback: TToT: Woman In Black Blouse Holding Black Bow – Shadow Bowing, #10Thankful | Her Headache
Everyone’s said all the things which need saying – they’ve said the wonderful, comforting, kind things which help. They’re right to, and they’re right about them.
The only thing I can say as extra, is that it’s okay to feel angry. It’s okay to feel ashamed and embarrassed. It’s entirely understandable because of the circumstances you were in, and the way other people’s poor choices impacted on you. You knew when things weren’t right, and you made choices, as we all do. Sometimes we’re right to make those choices and sometimes not, but we all live with the consequences.
The emotional consequences can be hard to bear, but they’re feelings. They’re not WHO you are. They don’t define you, or your worth.
Take it from someone who can talk the talk but not walk the walk.
Thank goodness for writing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You are right Lizzi.
🙂
Don’t know what I’d do without writing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I like that, i am blessed so much. Thanks a lot.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Pingback: Real Equals Vulnerable, #1000Speak #BeReal | Her Headache
Pingback: Thunderbolts and Firewires: The Year That Was 2016, #Farewell2016 #Writing #Podcast | Her Headache
Call me wind because I am abetluosly blown away.
LikeLike