But I am working on it.
Snapshots from a very lonely walk in the woods. By me. September 2026.
Questions posed by a meme served up by Instagram (5 minutes after also suggesting I follow the man I was having an affair with for a year. Christ, Instagram is nothing if not heavy-handed):
What was I not allowed to be mad at?
What am I still not allowed to be mad at?
Him. My father. Him. Greg, Jarrod. Him. The Electrician. Not allowed to be mad at the ones who withhold love. Heaven forfend.
If I showed my anger, he assuredly wouldn’t love me. Worse, he might abandon me. Spoiler alert: he abandons me either way, and I just politely abandon myself while he is at it.
I was able to be mad at my father at some point—royally furious—but only after an age I was able to transfer my hope and longing away from him and onto a very particular type of romantic partner. That inability to hold anger never budged, no matter which distant and hard-to-get soul managed to focus my affections. And so, I’d let them do anything, say anything, behave in any way, and I’d dismiss or absorb every bit of fury I was entitled to feel… At every slight, each disrespect, and each thoughtless betrayal.
It was a minor mercy that the Electrician was a gentle and loving man, one that my nervous system somehow accepted as safe enough to be intimate with. I still believe that if he were 20 years older and had a lifetime of trauma work behind him, that we’d be a hot match. But it doesn’t matter. He can’t catch up. He has been uninvited. But not before falling into the glue trap of my limerent thinking and that tarry pit in my heart that can only be filled by that special flavor of a man, one offering breadcrumbs, conditional love, and attachment as equally fucked up as mine.
Jesus, the fucking cozy oubliette of my disorganized attachment! Parker, remember: the point of this hole isn’t to be occupied with a new, sexy, bright young thing with an avoidant streak a mile wide, but to be healed. Once healed, no one else can ever stumble into it. And I’ll no longer spend all my energy tending it and shoring up those old familiar, yet confoundingly mysterious walls. I’ll let it fill in with garnet, quartz, loamy soil, and the mycelium of my nervous system, and then! Let it finally grow over with wild, sporing moss, scar tissue, and self-compassion.
And maybe then I will be free to actually see and love another tender, willing, secure-ish soul—one that gets to stand near me, attuning and co-regulating, not escalating or arousing trauma’s muscle memory and certainly not falling into the ancient boobytraps of my attachment wounds.
And maybe in addition to all the calm, centered connection, I’ll be able to feel righteously angry from time to time. And shit, how good will that feel?
-M
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