The Upper Hand

I hate it when I think someone has the upper hand on me. I don't like feeling vulnerable to another person. It is something that gets on my skin like poison oak and feels runny and infected. I feel cleaner on my own.

Control has long been an issue with me. I want to relax, to submit to the will of the other person, to be giving and selfless - but then the upper hand thing starts. I feel the imbalance of superiority in the words and actions of the other person and I become like a porcupine again, bristling in defense so you can get near me.

I am discovering my love/hate relationship with new. I prefer old - tried and true. The sweatshirt you reach for time and time again. Not only when it is cold outside, but also the times when you just need something soft and fluffy to swaddle you. I know that even old favorites were new at one time - I just wish I didn't have so many new things all at once in my life, new job, new life, new man. I long for someone who just knows me without a lot of explanation. I dread walking through the minefield of new relationships.

The vulnerability I feel makes me more reactive and don't even ask me about the whole "new" way of dating online and why men tend to keep logging on to see "what else" is out there. Call me old fashioned, but volume in dating is easy, true connection is not. I could have a date every night of the week if I just wanted to keep looking for next. See, I chose to go with the connection and now am truly exposed and scared to death - wanting to just run away from the potential of hurt in my life that I have no room for.

I long for the days when I just knew! I was too young to not know any better. My heart was fresh and had not been bounced around and dented. I was just loved and open and free to speak without thinking too much.
Everything was lighter. I was lighter.