It’s funny how you sometimes don’t realize who you really are when you’re unhappy. You can even delude yourself into believing you are actually happy, even though on the inside you are dying.
I only know this because that’s what was happening to me in the past years here in Florida. In an effort to keep my life on an even keel and keep others around me happy, I was becoming miserable.
I didn’t know I was miserable. But it turns out others knew it. They had seen a happy go lucky kind of guy who was always affable and quick with a joke, turn into a vile, spiteful, moody rogue that no one wanted to be around.
I can see it now, now that I am happy once again. I can see it in my writing too, for my ability to write is in lock step with my level of happiness. When I am miserable, the words don’t come easily and when they do, they are filled with doom and gloom rather than happiness and sunshine.
This subject came up last night. My significant other had remarked that she didn’t initially want to date me because I was so dark and moody. She asked, “How did you ever deal with your life back then, when you’re obviously a different guy now than you were when I first met you?”
I had to stop and think about it. After a moment or two, I had my answer.
Like a turtle, I had retreated into my shell. I withdrew my normal self to protect it from the onslaught of a very unhappy domestic situation. I stopped sticking my head out because every time I did, someone tried to bite it off. This only made matters worse, of course, as I would then try to snap back because the core of who I am was being constantly castigated and admonished.
Small wonder why I stayed in my shell. And believe me, it is a very hardened shell. When I’m in it, when I retreat inside to protect myself, no one can get to me. It is impenetrable.
Eventually, I just stayed there. That is the Robb my significant other had initially met, the guy who would sit in the corner of the room while everyone else was having a good time. The one who would say little and simply look off in the distance, waiting, hoping, for a day to come when he could come out of his shell again.
I never thought that day would come. It certainly wouldn’t in the shell game I was in at the time. I know that now. But back then I thought that I had to stick with my decision and live with the consequences.
What a dumbass! Looking back, I can’t understand why I stayed even a minute in an obviously bad relationship. I would never do that now. Sure, it would have been scary to call an end to it all and change my life once again. But I have to wonder now, why wouldn’t I? Was it really worth losing all sense of myself in the name of staying married, playing an endless shell game where my then significant other would try to find out under which shell I was hiding my heart that day so she could stomp all over it again?
Sorry, I don’t miss the shell games. I now it to be the sham it is. You can’t win. Instead, you simply go into hiding, never poking your head out to see if there’s a better world out there, one that may be just beyond the horizon. Rather, you stay in your shell, which becomes a very dark, dark place for your soul.
Since I’ve poked my head out again, I’ve come to learn that many, many others have shared similar fates. They too have retreated to the safety of that little place we all have, the one with the high walls that no one can scale. They know that it is a very small place to be, one that offers no real joy, no real life, and certainly, no real happiness.
Life is just too short to let someone else play you like that, especially someone, the one, who is always supposed to have your back. The only one in the world that should be your biggest fan, your most stalwart protector and your best friend and only love.
Yet when they turn on us or simply ignore us, we continue to justify it in our heads for some reason. We retreat into the shell and share excuses with our friends, hoping they will convince us to believe them ourselves. We simply give up, figuring this is our lot in life because we chose to be with this person until death do us part.
I’ve had to learn the hard way that this is all crap. This last time around, the other person made the decision for me. At the time, I was heartbroken because I thought we should stick it out. Why? So I could continue to be miserable, so that my soul could continue to be sucked out of me one day at a time?
Three years later, I don’t miss shell games any longer. I found that out of the darkness comes a life I could have never imagined. A fairy tale world where every day is filled with happiness, joy and possibilities. A world I could have never imagined only a few short years ago.
It wasn’t my ex’s fault by the way. She was just being who she is. I was the one that let this unhappiness fill my heart and soul by living a life of lies. I wasn’t lying to her, but to me about who I really was and what I really wanted. I was like a sapling, bending easily initially in the freshness of a breezy new relationship, but finding it impossible to grow in that position. Eventually, you either return to who you are or you snap.
The sapling is upright once again. And the turtle no longer needs his shell.
Out on the Treasure Coast, wondering why anyone would ever date someone with “HELL” in their name, 🙂
– Robb