Applause for the Wallflower

I think half the work in making a relationship function properly is understanding who you are and accepting the things you cannot change about yourself. Like the fact that I'm pretty insecure, for instance. It's always been that way--something that can't be helped, but rather accepted as part of me. I don't think it's something a lot of people know as a character trait I'm well familiar with, but it's something that I think for all of my short life thus far, I've kept pretty close to my heart. Recently, I started recognizing it a lot more. Like tonight. After a long blog yesterday (mentioned in the previous blog) about how I truly felt about Carlos, I received numerous messages/comments in response to it from him. At first I wasn't really expecting him to have the balls to seriously say anything to me about it. I didn't think that after all the shit I spewed about him and how upset and hurt I still was, how I didn't care, he would write me about how he was "proud" that I'd finally scrounged up the nerve to tell the truth. It makes me wonder how much he knew about me that I didn't know. In any case, the real hard-hitter for me though was a text me sent me. He thanked me for coming back to him all those times and loving him the way he'd loved me. There was more than just those things, but those are the two details of the text that stick out the most, insecurity growing the more and more I analyze the meaning of the statement.

I guess the issue is that I wonder if he truly meant this, or whether it was some sarcastic ploy to, yet again, reiterate how unnecessary I always was to him. But I think what I'm mostly insecure about is what if he really did mean it? What if he meant thank you? I guess, essentially, the question should be what does it matter...and frankly, I don't really know what it would matter in the long run, but for some reason, it's just something that sticks with me. It's like finally, he's truly appreciating everything that I did do, the hardships I went through for him, how far I went because I truly cared... No one ever appreciates it till they don't have to anymore--when it doesn't matter, doesn't count.

I'm trying hard to learn from this and apply it to what I have now. But its not so easy. We fall into patterns of habitual fighting over the same topics--the same argument, it feels like, for days. I appreciate him and the things he does for me, as well as he. But why argue about it? Why must I insist on arguing a point I know he'll take no consideration for? While I am easily influenced, a change-of-heart kind of girl, he's dead-set in his ways, and me, the change-of-heart girl will always want to make the dead-set boy budge, to see him waver. Not because it brings me satisfaction in knowing I've changed him into someone he isn't, but because I've opened his eyes to greater possibilities--I've broadened his horizons. But I think it's time that change-of-heart girl let someone else broaden her horizons for once. I don't think it would be so bad to let someone else lead for a while. Maybe it'll do me some good...