Now I Begin to See: Attention Seeking Part IV

 

In reflecting on Attention Seeking Parts I – III, I can begin to see some clarity in this process.

“Attention Seeking: Part I” was my confession, in it I revealed my shame for desiring male attention. While I can fill my own cup with validation and self-love, now I begin to see that it is a fallacy for me to think that I can remain completely independent.

“The Fairy Tale of Storybook Romance: Attention Seeking Part II”is my judgment of society and of my belief in romantic love. I seek to separate myself from my desire of a partner through judgment. I relate my need for a partner to feeling incomplete.

“How bad is it, really? Attention Seeking Part III“shows where I begin to question my shame, my judgment and even my need vs desire. This post poses more questions than it answers.

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“Now I Begin to See”

Standing alone, I can see my strength.
Feeling alone, I can see my weakness.
Both are but shadows.

What is it that I truly seek?
My inner divinity.
It is hidden beneath the shame & the lies; false freedoms.

I begin to see where I want to fly,
with someone who can fly beside me;
helping one another to see from new perspectives.

Vulnerability, bare nakedness,
sharing & caring,
Through both the pain and the ecstasy.

Someone who can be there during the greatest heights,
and just as easily during the lowest lows.
Someone who can accept my reciprocity.

To have a partnership built on trust,
mutual respect, passion and
love that can endure.

For me to expect such great heights, then I must rise up, too.
For me to expect such great lows, then I must sink down it in, too.
To experience the edges is to risk being cut; yet also great glory.

I begin to see where I have urged myself to not need,
to not desire for this connection; shaming myself
to avoid the repeated pain of disappointment and rejection.

The avatars initially built on stars,
must fall sometime.
How far, though, is the fall?

Safer it seems, to find my own things that need mending.
For through the eyes of a Lover, each flaw seems magnified.
Now I begin to see the safety in not flying, just staying and not even trying.

In my dreams, I see myself standing at the precipice, toes dangling over the sharp edge.
I know if I just had the faith,
that I would spread my wings and fly.

Now just to jump.
Now just to believe in the unseen,
in the untested.

Now just to be free of the doubt that seems to plague me.

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What started out as a focus on attention seeking ends with me beginning to see where I have built walls up around me. Yet, so cleverly I blamed society. All the while I was shaming and judging myself for my own needs, my own desires.

Love can be scary, because it shows us where we love-not. A Lover will hold me to a higher standard and level of accountability and, wittingly or unwittingly, show me where I am wounded; just as I would for him. Were we to meet, would we both survive the fall or would we rise up, instead?

No wonder this Rumi quote seems to follow me:

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ― Rumi

Namaste.

Photo by Vlado at freedigitalphotos.net