Fear

There haven't been words or phrases or sentences yet invented to start off something like this, but I've been thinking, as I'm sure is abundantly clear. My most satisfying relationships are almost all with women and while that is certainly satisfactory, I think that leaves a large hole in my life.

I remember the first time I was afraid of my father and I remember, in little child wisdom, giving way to numbness and love alternately throughout much of my childhood. I clung to my mother for her great love, the best I'd ever known, and I clung to my father when I could. I remember the first time that fear came back. Fresh, raw, and potent, it paralyzed me. It was in my own stupidity that we almost died that night, all four of us. I look back and I can't believe I didn't say anything. i can't believe my own naivete, that my father was going to do what was right for his girls when he never had before. I regret how I felt and how I acted. I regret not saying no. But most of all, I regret what that makes me.

Not all men are like my father. I firmly believe that. I have seen some of the most beautiful and touching moments of fatherhood, moments when you so perfectly feel the existence of evil in the world and at the same time, the power of man to rise above it in the Lord.

But I am afraid of men. I do not trust them so easily or so wholeheartedly. I do not believe they value me as a person. I do not believe that they do or ever could need a person, a woman like me. I spend much of my time feeling like a shapeless mass, a slouching blob of nothing. But around them, I feel so incredibly small, a glass doll in an earthquake. I cannot hold myself together. I am afraid and there is nothing I can do about it.

So when it comes to love, it is no wonder I am alone. I could say it was "sabotage" and this blather could end with the feel of a formulaic chick flick, but that's not it. I need more than I could possibly expect from another human being. I need healing that can only come from God. I can't find any of that in a man and I'm not going to look for it. I have faith that if God is going to put someone in my life that He intends to have love me, He will make it clear. But until that day, I will push on, hands clasped and heart ready, no matter how my steps falter or my knees tremble. Harder things have been done.