Recently I watched a video from one of my favorite singers where she talks about a relationship advice she had received from her mother. Check this out:
“My mother told me a story a really long time ago. She told me: don’t fall for the person that gives you butterflies. If you feel nervous when you’re around them, that’s a bad sign. Fall for the person who makes you feel safe, who makes you feel calm. That’s the person you’re supposed to be with. ‘Cause if your heart leaps out of your chest every time you get some little hint of affection or love from them, it means they’re keeping you strung along and it’s not the person to be with. Be with the person that makes you feel safe”. - Halsey.
It was probably the most brilliant thing I've heard in a while. Damn, miss Ashley Frangipane... You always know exactly what to say!
That simple story opened the topic for a conversation inside my own head for days. And it was a conversation about how many times I put my own life at risk for people I loved. The shock came through when I noticed the pattern: I was always doing that. Whether if it was driving drunk with my best friends after a party because I didn't want them to drive drunk alone. Or walking around a dangerous neighborhood because the guy I liked lived there, so I would take the longest and most dangerous way home just in case he was outside and I would have the chance to casually say hi. Later, as I started getting into serious relationships, this pattern only got worse. Getting into a car with a drunk alcoholic because I didn't want him to leave the house. Or driving recklessly at 4:30 in the morning after an argument with an angry boyfriend in the car. Cars are dangerous things, people should never drive when they're in the heat of an argument or a fight. I've always been someone who was capable of loving everything about a person, their good and their bad parts, and that wasn't always healthy for me. Since I'm learning how to love myself and give myself some importance, I decided that I need to break this cycle now in this new phase of my life.
I got this concept tattooed because you don’t ignore a mother’s advice. This is also a reminder to myself that I once loved someone and almost let them take me to the graveyard when they left me. I will never let that happen again. I've learned recently that putting myself in danger for somebody else doesn't only include driving recklessly or getting into physical fights. It's also about giving everything you have to them. You can't fully give yourself to someone, as beautiful as the movies or books make that look - because you will be left with nothing if they ever leave. Funny enough, that was something I heard from someone who actually left me later in the relationship. So when I say that's never happening again, I'm not joking. I'm never giving myself so much to someone else ever again, not to the point that I have nothing left. I will give, but I will make sure to receive just as much as I give; And I won't give all of myself. What good does it do to give so much 'til the point that you're left out with nothing? If you have nothing, you have nothing to give. So that's the lesson: I need to always preserve the part of me that is me. If that special person ever leaves, I still have me. If I ever decide to open myself up to somebody again, I need to make sure to look out for the warning signs - not only in them, but in myself too. Enough of the kamikaze bat shit crazy thing.
The butterflies are now dead.