Mary, Mary Quite Contrary!!

Sometimes I am a huge bundle of contradictions. I want my ex-husband to miss me and wish that he could have me back...but I don't want him back and if he tells me that he wants me back it makes me uncomfortable. I love people and want them to love me...but when they do I cringe in fear. I want people to want to spend time with me...until they are there and then I want to be alone. I wish people would pay attention enough to talk to me and then I hate the sound of someone elses voice intruding on my conciousness.

I read a post once by a great blogger who calls herself Mary P. Jones (its a pseudonym) entitled "I Crave and Loathe Attention". You can find it on her blog, here.

When I read this post I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time (see, more contradition). She had done an amazing, satirical, witty, touching job of telling me exactly how I feel so much of the time. I have this feeling so often that it has just become a part of who I am. I remind myself frequently that I am just a crazy person that can't seem to decide what I want and can't seem to be happy once I have gotten whatever it is that I thought I wanted.

It was so comforting to know that I wasn't alone and that perhaps I wasn't crazy or unsatisfiable...I just needed to figure out how to identify those feelings for what they are. And what they are is my mind and body and soul telling me that what I want isnt always what I need.

There are times that I will desperately want company only to be irritated when someone shows up to spend time with me. What that tells me is that I am wanting company to avoid something...a feeling about myself, a project that I don't want to deal with, another person I am trying to buffer or avoid altogether...rather than dealing with it, like I really need to.

Then there are times that I genuinely want someone to spend time with because that is what I need at that time...connection.

I also recently realized that while I have always known I was shy, a homebody, not really an outgoing type person it goes deeper than that. I am an introvert...obviously. But I think I am an introvert for the most negative of reasons sometimes. I will admit a part of it is just temperament...but some of it is a struggle with something deeper, sadder and more difficult than just a basic personality trait. Some of it is because I want people to know the me that I wish I was, and I know the me that I truly am could never measure up. A part of me really believes that I don't deserve connection, that people will back away from me if they really knew me, that I am responsible for all the negative, bad, mean things that people have done to me. And even though a part of me thinks I deserve all that negativity and bad stuff...another part really wants to be safe from it. I want to be safe from the possibility of getting hurt...and the only way to stay safe is to stay separate. So even though I crave that connection, that attention, that LOVE....well, I shy away--sometimes run away--from it, in fear.

What does that make me??