Another walk about, after dark.

I always like to make out that I'm a bit of a bitch, with a frosty cold heart & to a certain degree this is the truth.  However, I think the real cold bitter bitch side of me got broken & defeated by The Ex many years ago & since then, I've just been making a replica to try & bring back a part of me, which I'm terribly afraid is dead.

I feel rather naked & vulnerable being the nice version of me.  It's not used to daylight you see.  Years of bitter resentment towards my parents & a childhood I often felt robbed of, lead to volatile behaviour & aggressive outbursts.  I didn't really know how to love & was never fully accepting of someone else's.

But since those broken & shattered years, I have loved & completely opened up to give myself to someone.  Unfortunately, that relationship came to an end.  But that's how things are meant to be.  I truly don't believe in forevers.

The issue now is, I tried being the open hearted nice side of myself with The Boy & he kind of walked all over me, like I was a piece of rattan.  It hurt.  A lot.  That kick in the teeth sent me running back into my shell & saw me sticking needles all over it.

Now I've finally met someone new & all I want to do is pick up a Kinder Egg whenever I see them in the store, because I know he likes them & I always think I'll save them for when I see him next.  In fact, I once spent an afternoon googling Kinder Advent Calendars, just because I knew it would make him smile.

Just in that one little act, I suddenly realise how vulnerable I am.  It's so easy for me to be nice & do nice things for the people I care about.  For friends it's the easiest thing in the world.  For him, or for any man shape, it's the hardest.  Because I feel humiliated every time I do something nice & I think to myself 'he wouldn't do something cute like that for me'.

I don't want to live my life constantly guarded, in case someone turns out to be a right bastard after all.  But what actually is the right balance between being yourself, allowing your natural caring instincts to come out & being sensible enough not to get too emotionally attached & protect yourself against the obvious pain that comes with liking someone, who essentially may or may not ever like you back to the degree that you need.