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The bookmark

    I sometimes realize how much fear I still carry around with me. Sometimes I think that I am completely past the fear that engages my mind, and then I am hit with something that draws me back so forcefully that I feel all the air being dragged from my lungs.
    It happened tonight. I was talking with my mother about the things in my life and where I feel my life is heading, and she thought that perhaps there was a negative outside force in the means of my ex being something that was bringing negativity or abrasion into my life. I immediately reassured her that it wasn't so.
    But, I told her there was something else...and I fear it is my doing entirely. My fear...being a bookmark. When I was younger, I always wanted a bookmark for the book I was reading. Whether it be a new one or something significant I used to mark the page of which I was currently on. Now days I use a pen or pencil to mark said book.
    Which means that I still use something to mark my spot. My fear is that I am that bookmark. But, what does that mean? We use a bookmark for one purpose. To keep us at the place we choose to be until we are ready to turn the page. I use this analogy because it makes the most sense.
     I think for Z I was a bookmark. I was a means to keep him at the place in his life until he was ready to face his own reality. But, I believe I used him for the same purpose. And how horribly wrong it was. Neither of us knew any better. Neither of us understood the consequences of that meaning of which we placed on the other.
     What I realize now is that I will not now nor will I ever be that for anyone else. I believe sometimes it is so easy to become comfortable with a constant in our lives that we can invariably use people as bookmarks to hold our lives at a place that keeps us comfortable. We can use someone without realizing that the means of which we use them is in the end more damaging.
     But what do I mean? I find myself in the presence of someone who allows me to have become comfortable with my own situation. Do I mind? Hardly! I find it welcoming. But, I only know me. I only know my own true heart's situation. I only know my own reasoning behind the need or desire to have become so comfortable. It is for perhaps a grander purpose. But, what of theirs? Am I a bookmark?
     Do you want to know what I really think? I think I am scared shitless. I think that I am a bit scared to allow myself to let go enough with this person that I will only wake up one morning realizing that I have become a placeholder for their own benefit. Immediately this makes me want to put up walls and boundaries to guard myself against future hurt. I want to completely shut myself off from vulnerability that I in turn hurt myself.
     I am at a crossroads. I don't know what to do. Do I make it known and allow them to perhaps fuck me over now? Or, do I wait knowing that I might be fucked over later? Or, do I trust a part of my heart that I have come to neglect in the hopes that I will be saved from the hurt? I don't know. I have no idea.
     There are moments when I feel I am too old for this kind of internal pettiness. But, then again, I realize that I am just a normal human being trying to make it in a world that would almost rather see me suffer than succeed. I can't. I won't. I refuse to be a bookmark. But, am I just brave enough to find out if I am allowing myself to be a placeholder for my own small bit of sanity? Guess time will tell.

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