Reckless protection

The cumulative mistakes and missteps I've made, and how much these experiences have fucking mangled my sense of trust in myself, other human beings, and the universe, has all been on my mind a lot lately. I've been feeling appreciative, more open, more social, and more willing to be vulnerable, at times. But I must admit that such moves almost always result in a consequent or simultaneous feeling of dread, wariness, doubt, danger, and an irritable desire to withdraw. 

I think it's good for me to be wary. Fools rush in, after all, and my blind charge right past all sorts of very real, very painful realities in past situations has led me to where I am now. It reminds me of the cavalier impulse of an inveterate smoker of cigarettes, who says, "Who cares about cancer or heart disease? I'll deal with that when the time comes. Quitting smoking would take away one of my great pleasures. It's a risk I am willing to take." These thoughts of course occur in the free and clear hypothetical space where the terminal diagnosis has not yet been delivered. 

For me, part of my recklessness is that I discount how tender, sensitive, sentimental, and impressionable my heart is, and put myself in situations with people who are more capable than I of being distant, cold, unfeeling, practical, self protective. "I can take it!" I say to myself. I am finally beginning to learn that I sometimes can't take it. I'm tired of being gutted by people who are capable of a total disappearing act. 

In conversation this morning I thought of The Fool from the tarot, and how that archetype has definitely characterized a lot of the energy that has been behind many of my major life decisions. 

I mean, even the little white dog has better instincts, right? And yet, I think this is also one of my enduring strengths, this "Fool"-ish plunging and high stepping energy. The thing is, the heartbreak and suffering of the past period of time has been severe enough and bewildering enough that it may well be that The Emperor has finally gotten through, at least to some extent. 

Caution, a plan, boundaries, self protection, discrimination, taking red flags seriously, wisdom, parsimony, self preservation. The anti-Fool. Of course, the two are good companions, each balancing the other in crucial ways. When I was younger, I hated The Emperor archetype thoroughly, and always felt uneasy and rebellious when it came up in a reading. Now, I feel somewhat leery when The Fool makes an appearance, and welcome The Emperor a lot more. 

The plain fact is I have repeatedly offered everything I had in situations where it was unwelcome. Not sure unwelcome is the right word. Impossible to be taken, impossible to be received. Return to sender. The person or situation to whom you sent your whole self is no longer at this address. This was a capstone experience after years of throwing myself away, really. For example, being in a teaching job where I put my whole self into it, but in a school where I was completely disposable. And enduring the humiliations of the graduate school experience. Although, that constituted a turn in a different direction, since the Ph.D. awaited at the end of the process. Many, many of my other situations were scraps from the table, disposable situations, where the majority of the time I was subsisting in a kind of barrenness, and would glory in breadcrumbs, intermittent and niggardly. Precisely why I have been used to living an emotionally depauperate life where I was dependent on people and situations that could easily take or leave me is still something of a mystery. 

Clearly, my relationships within my family system were this way. And the first love and first heartbreak with the Lovejoy had this arc to it, also, with her pursuing her own goals blithely, without any compromise or gesture toward my well being or desires. I guess that was part of a pattern, yet also set it even more in stone. A quick review of the historical facts has me moving to accommodate the life of a woman six times, from 1987 to 2007. I have not once stood in a particular place or work situation and had a woman offer to uproot and re-arrange her entire life in order to be with me. This is similar to patterns with my family, where I think I have been visited where I have lived three times, in total, by family members, my whole life. I have always been expected to visit, and I've either obliged or not seen family members for years on end. 

Recent friendships have me feeling more connected, after a stretch of even more deep hermitage than I thought I was in before. But along with a sense of connection, a fiercely self protective and isolating energy arises. I'm feeling a lifetime of resentment and anger over having been played, so to speak. I mean, honestly, I've played myself, and let myself be played— ain't nobody's fault but mine. How easily I have abandoned my life to be with women, in particular. As befits a Fool, the rewards have been great, but the losses and discontinuity and chaos and lack of stability for myself have also all been profound. Perhaps there are new ways for me to find some kind of middle between Fool and Emperor.