The letyougoness

I have said this before in a variety of ways. I've lived with the letyougoness my entire life.

The letyougoness is second nature.

I grew up moving and moving and letting go and letting go. We would be best friends and then at the end of the year you'd move or I would. And we'd be sad to say goodbye and there would be promises and tears and then we'd both spin off our respective directions into the wide world.

I could love you and I could let go of you. That was just how it went. There was always a lot of Hi! Bye! in my life. Always.

So the letyougoness has always been there. It's just worked in different ways in different circumstances.

In my 20s, I was very insecure, and I needed to constantly be told nice things about myself. And so men - boyfriends, really - were critical. This, as you may imagine, made me a true and utter delight of a girlfriend. I can look back in the stark light of retrospect and say it was a really good thing I was pretty. Because I was a serious pain in the ass. Maude will tell you. She was there through a lot of these. So anyway.

So the letyougoness meant that I wouldn't get so emotionally attached, and then it would really kick in when I got bored dating someone.

Because the thing is, it took me until my 30s to realize that men were whole, entire people. You know, people with whom you could have interactions on many levels. They weren't just for compliments and dating.

I'd love to say that I'm exaggerating, that I was not that limited in my scope. But I was.

During that period of my life the letyougoness was just sort of, I don't know, like the pair of jeans in the back of your closet that you'd eventually reach for when you ran out of clean ones. These guys would adore me and adore me - because what would be the point of dating someone for the adoration if they didn't? And I'd like them back enough, although mostly what I'd like was that they liked me. And gave me compliments and did nice things for me. And made me feel, albeit temporarily, better about myself.

And then, at the 3-6 month point - the point where, if you have nothing but one-directional adoration in common, you have nothing much to say to each other. And at that point the letyougoness would suffocate me in the same way as a tight shirt on a hot, sweaty day.

And all of a sudden it would be time. I'd feel choked. Gotta letyougo. Thanks ever so! Bye!

But now the letyougoness has probably become a defense mechanism more than anything. In case. Because, well, who knows? I can like you. I can love you. And even so? It will always be fine. It'll be OK if it doesn't work out. I can always letyougo.

Getting past the letyougoness? Letting go of the letyougoness? Ooh, I don't know. It's a safety blanket, you know? Even if it's constructed with all the flexibility and softness of, well, I'm not sure exactly. But maybe along the lines of chain link fence.