I Guard My Heart But That Doesn’t Mean I Don’t Want Love

I’ve built walls, walls so high sometimes I don’t know if they’ll ever be able to be knocked down.

I use my walls as protection, as comfort and over the years those protection layers have become so thick to the point where I don’t know what it would be like without them.

I don’t know who I’d be without them.

I’ve become completely self-sufficient. Fearless to book a plane trip alone, completely fine eating alone in public, able to kill a spider without a scream (okay, the second part isn’t always true).

I’ve become my own superhero, but I’ve also become my own worst enemy.

I guard my heart because it’s easier that way. It’s easier to keep the walls surrounding it because they’ve been my only comfort for so long. They’ve become my guidance and protection from being hurt and feeling pain. But while I have the walls so high guarding my heart I’ve also come to realize that from this I’m losing out on chances of love. I’m shutting myself off to the idea of love because I feel better this way, I feel like I’m protecting myself.

I know I’m my own problem, I know I’m standing in my own way, but the problem is I just can’t seem to move. I cemented myself into the ground.

I’m stuck in a rut I can’t get out of.

I’m working on it, but right now all I can do is stay hopeful. Hopeful that I’ll be able to find the strength to lift my feet from the ground I planted them so deeply in or that someone will come along and knock me off my feet.

Just because I’m guarded doesn’t mean I don’t want love. It simply means that I need someone to come in my life and stay.

I need someone who can help me break down the walls I’ve built, someone to remind me that love isn’t so scary after all and that loving someone could be the best thing for me.

I need to work on letting people in because I can’t have the best of both worlds. I can’t be closed off and loved. It just doesn’t work that way.

Part of me wishes I could just keep putting myself out there, part of me wishes I could just keep loving through the pain, but instead I’ve become closed off. I’ve become wrapped up so tightly in my own head and convinced myself that there’s no way someone could love me or that even if they do, they’ll still leave.

It’s an awful game I play inside my head, but I’m working on it. I’m working on me. I’m working on not relying on someone coming into my life and ‘fixing’ me because I don’t need to be fixed. I don’t need to be made whole because I am whole. I just need to work on myself by myself. I need to work on letting my heart breathe, I need to just go with things and stop talking myself out of it. I need to put my heart on the line because it’s the only way I’ll ever get closer to finding love and love is the one thing we all ultimately want in this world.

This is my promise to myself to love more, to love harder and start chipping away at the walls I’ve built around my heart. This is me working on myself. This is me letting go of the past pain and looking forward with a cleared mind and a light heart because you shouldn’t live in pain forever.

This is my promise for new beginnings and to being open to love.