Which relationship has taught you the most about yourself?
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Irony… It is pure irony that this is the prompt for today. My mind and heart are in turmoil. They have waged a war, and my heart has lost. Only my mind has kept me standing.
I think I am somewhat of a protector. I would rather hurt than let the ones I love hurt. As a child, I believed that every smiling face in my life was love, but over the years, I learnt that most of them were facades. They smiled because they wanted something from me. As a child, they wanted my parents to pay the price for their love, and when I grew older, they wanted me to pay the price to keep my parents happy.
Over the years of growing up, I gave up on those ties. I realised that I would rather see the sneer on their faces than watch them hide it behind a mask of fake love. At least then, I knew what was real.
With every relationship I gave up, I realized that my form of protection, simply taking the hits and breaking down in silence, was not the only thing I could do. I learnt how to break ties and walk away. I learnt that sometimes being the sacrificial lamb is not the way to grow. Sometimes, being the raging bull is something I need to allow myself to be.
Carrying all that weight inside with the objective of causing no one else pain is not always the right thing to do. The relationships that have destroyed me have also given me the courage to be mad. To speak up when something is wrong. To walk away when staying costs me too much. And to learn to accept the role of the villain if it means that I get to keep my sanity.
Because I am finally learning that protecting the people I love should never have required destroying myself.
