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As I sit alone in my BnB far away from the drama that has overwhelmed me it has occurred to me that I have never been allowed to have boundaries.  The setting of limits has always been seen as selfish or weak.

I am told when I cross everyone else’s boundaries.  I have been taught to bob and weave to try and avoid triggers or land mines. To apologize and bow and scrap and ask for forgiveness for crossing invisible lines I couldn’t possibly have known about.

I listen to everyone tell me that my boundaries are selfish, my needs simply too much. My problems are making any situation all about me. Not caring about others enough. I have spent a lifetime being not enough.  Giving my everything in the service of people who only asked for more.

I continue to be amused by all the people in my circle who talk about the selfishness of the world. How everyone is just “me, me, me”.  They always fail to see the irony that they are angry because it is not about “them, them, them”. When they are being asked to look beyond themselves, it is a bridge too far, an act of treason to see beyond their own wants and needs.

Us the boundaryless are left to try and fill that void.  To plaster over all their cracks using what is left in us to give over to their completeness.  What is left for us once we have no more left to give?  Our dreams abandoned, or hope dashed, our connections forsaken?  I find myself empty.  Devoid of emotion, mourning not their continued struggle but my failure to be enough.  That my sacrifice, time and energy could not make a dent.  That I will continue to go unseen, unheard and a disappointment. All of me has just been sacrificed on the altar of their disappointment and disapproval.  I will be maligned as a failure who should not have even bothered to try for I was only capable of making things worse.  Even though it cost me everything – everything was simply not enough and I should have been able to foresee that. 

Here I sit empty and alone.  Looking at all the fractures I have created.  All of the lives I have painted black by not being enough.

How do I set boundaries?  When can I draw my lines – when can I ask for help.  Currently when I ask I am doing it wrong. I need to eat all my hurt and pretend I am whole and not empty.   I need to pretend I have not asked for all this before and not been worthy to receive it.  But I must try again to be trampled and trod upon.  I must sift through the dust to try and put all the broken pieces together again as a whole.  I must not tell of my hurt or my heartache, my loneliness and isolation – these are things of the past. If I share this hurt it is not productive – I might hurt someone’s feelings. They might not heal. 

So here I remain staring into the abyss – wondering if I should dive in; or wait for the abyss to stare back and offer me an answer, or a way out.