Love In All The Wrong Places

Why do I feel the need to look for love in all of the wrong places?  I ask myself what is driving me to seek out something that cannot work, that has no chance of success, even from the outset?  Why do I conceive an idea or a plan that is going to bring me nothing but pain, anguish and sorrow?  There is one answer to all of these questions.

The answer is that I feel the constant need to punish myself.  To prove to myself over and over that I am unworthy of love, that I am undeserving of love.  I have to create this self-fulfilling prophecy, a story whose ending I have scripted before even the female lead actor takes to the stage.  The face is of no consequence, the final act is always going to end in the same way.

If you watch the same show over and over, then eventually you will become bored.  Why have I not become bored of my own story?  Why do I persist in re-enacting the same script again and again, transporting the story into different locations, different times, different actors, but always with the same outcomes?

I am a fool.  What else can I say about myself?  Knowingly, and with open eyes, and a brain that comprehends the logic (the illogic?) of what I am doing, I still go forward, I still knock on the door in full knowledge that what lies beyond can only be an empty room, and when I find the answer that I have sought, and that I knew would come, I feel surprised, let down, and hurt.  But wait!  Then comes the glory and my reward.  A moment of disappointment and sadness, and then something else.  A wry smile, an ironic laugh, and I ask myself, "Why does this always happen to me?", and I question the motives of God and what His purpose for me could possibly be, and for which motive does He always deny me love?  What cruel game is He playing? 

Of course, I know He is not playing any games with me.  I know that He does not do this to me.  I am the architect of my own failures.   Everything that goes wrong, is caused by my own actions and my own choices.  So why do I persist in doing this to myself?

The answer to that, I am sure, lies somewhere back in my childhood.  At some pivotal moment, I formed an opinion about myself, namely, that I am undeserving of being loved and that I will never find happiness through love.  Ever since that moment, I have spent my entire life reinforcing this to myself.  Living out my self-fulfilling prophecies time and again: that I am unworthy, that no one will ever love me, and that ultimately, I am destined to live a life alone and devoid of love.  So far, this has been for the most part true.

Armed with this knowledge of how my brain works, I have a glimmer of a hope and perhaps a chance to do something about it.  I understand what I do, and I must fight hard against the urges when they come.  I must have patience and learn to wait.  I must recognise the situation and know that this person, these circumstances are not right.  I need to keep telling myself that I am worthy and I need to accept that as fact.

I know the true answer lies out there somewhere.  I know that one day, I will find the very thing that I have struggled with the most in my life.  It must come, mustn't it?  My life cannot be this amazing and this blessed, if I am never to reach and to take hold of that one missing thing: love.

My search goes on.  I will walk my path and trust that the day, the moment will arrive.  When it does, everything will have been worth the wait, for she will be standing there, she will look upon me and she will smile.  And in that very moment, I will know that I have arrived.  I will have found my home.

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