I realize that I don't usually trust men with my emotions. At least, not the difficult ones, the dark ones, the pain and confusion and fear. The falling apart. I keep it to myself as much as possible. I don't think they'll really care or I fear they'll be put off or that they won't want to be bothered. I tend to try to be easy and keep anything messy or sticky or difficult out of their hair. I suspect I might also fear that even if they do happen to care, they won't react in any way that would be useful. I expect disgust or annoyance or boredom or incompetence. Even in the best of men.

And I am increasingly aware that my expectations shape my reality. I

want to tell this new exceptional man I love about it, to reveal the places where I'm terrified. I want to let him in. And I am afraid.

My tendency is to hide my pain or at least to diminish it, to talk about what's tearing me apart quite casually or neutrally as if discussing menu options or a television show, while all the while I'm being boiled in acid. I'm casting my body in front of a train. I do not want to be seen as over-emotional or a handful or whatever. I'm afraid of presenting men with more than I think they can handle, because I am afraid that if presented with more than they can handle, they might respond by pushing me away. And I'm terrified of the people I love pushing me away.

Furthermore, I think that I don't expect emotional sensitivity, finesse, or deftness from men. I think I expect them to try to fix. I don't expect real empathy or understanding or whatever response in the moment would well meet whatever it is I'm experiencing. I don't expect them to get it (whatever 'it' is) and look at me with eyes

soft and warm and go, "oh, honey," or something, and squeeze my hand, draw me close and just hold me. I fear sharing the places in me that even frighten me -- and feeling terribly, horribly

alone.

I underestimate even wonderful men in this respect, based, perhaps, on experiences I've had with far less emotionally sophisticated men than those I'm involved with now earlier in my sexual & intimate development. I think I developed defense patterns that may no longer serve me. I am only now realizing that my tendency not to trust men is as much a problem for me as it might be a sad situation that the individuals I was interacting with -- a long time ago -- might not have been

emotionally well-developed. And I got hurt. And internalized a lot of shame around being loving or being emotional or whatever, when there was nothing wrong with my being loving or experiencing deeply a wide range of emotions or whatever. It was just that the individuals I was interacting with weren't ready for that.

I think it is because I do not trust men with my emotions that I've tended to assume that I couldn't have a real relationship with one, that men are reserved for more casual engagements and women are for more complex interrelating. Because I tend to think of them as having more emotional deftness, more finesse, and understanding. And to share more of their emotional universe with me. Which is important to me.

It is my tendency not to trust so much with men. Not to open that wide. Not to reveal myself completely, gorgeous and vulnerable. Not like a pomegranate open in someone's palms, all the jewels visible and available and gleaming and so so crushable.

I try not to heap little sandcastles of hope on men. I expect them to roll over and for everything to be dashed. I try not to trust them with anything that means too much to me. This sounds terrible to me. I think it is true. I'll give them my affection and my sex

and my delight and my deliciousness. The biggest things--how wild and gorgeous and resplendent and boundless is my love, how terrifying and horrible is my despair, how violent and intense are my rages, how cutting the thoughts that curl around my brain, my cruelty, my hunger, my self-abasement, my desire, my self-hatred, my rapture. Everything raw and unrefined, I tend to keep close with men. Hold the cards close to the chest. More like, I memorize their message and their meaning, slip them sly into my back pocket, smile as if nothing were there, and slap the hand that reaches for my ass. Or I simply slip away.

I do not want to do this with this new exceptional man in my life. I want to open and open and open. And I can feel myself holding things back. The love part is easy. The darker things are another matter. The fear, the sense

that I might be betraying myself sometimes and I don't know how or the knowledge that I'm not taking as good care of myself as I'd like or the general overwhelm of today and the day before yesterday and panic about this or that and what are the ramifications of this and that thing and how do they sit with me and grief that claws at my belly and this is the first I've really written in what? weeks or something,

just taken the time out of somewhere to barely begin to process and work through some of the tons and tons stuff that's been up for me and why's it so hard for me to take twenty minutes or an hour a day and call it my own? And sit with that woman named Ariana I used to like so much? Why, how come? I don't want to share this me with this new exceptional man. I want him to know all that is good and none that is yucky.

And I do want to share this me him. Desperately. I want to be totally here. I want to hide nothing. I want to come into myself fully. And not hide my eyes or turn away.

I think . . . that maybe . . . I can trust this man . . . with all the Ariana that I usually don't share with men . . . but I'm scared . . . and I don't yet really know how to open as fully as I want to. But this is hopefully a good first step.

Today was so hard for me. I wanted to fall apart this exceptional man’s arms. And I barely knew how to even communicate that there was anything amiss . . .